Encouraged by anti-Israel incitement, a Palestinian terrorist went on a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv before being caught by police.

A Palestinian terrorist wielding a knife wounded 12 Israelis, four seriously, as he attacked them on a bus in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.

The Palestinian, 23-year-old Hizme Matrouk from Tulkarem in Samaria, boarded the number 40 bus that was filled with morning commuters and immediately attacked the bus driver, wounding him and another passenger seriously. The driver reportedly tried fighting back with tear gas, and the bus began swerving.

An Israel Prison Service (ISP) team driving in the vicinity noticed the commotion and rushed to the scene. When the bus stopped, passengers began to flee. The terrorist also jumped off the bus and managed to stab another woman, seen in the below video at the 7-second mark, before fleeing himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQikZa3S4g

ISP members chased the terrorist and shot him, wounding him in the leg. Matrouk was arrested, given treatment and then taken in for questioning. Police units launched a search for possible accomplices.

Four Israelis were seriously wounded in the terror attack, and two sustained moderate wounds and were evacuated to hospitals in the Tel Aviv area. The rest were lightly wounded or were treated for shock. Eight of the wounded are still being treated in hospitals.

Direct Result of Palestinian Incitement

“The terrorist attack in Tel Aviv is the direct result of the poisonous incitement being disseminated by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against the Jews and their state. This same terrorism is trying to attack us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated.

“It is Hamas – Abu Mazen’s [Abbas’s] partners in a unity government – that hastened to commend this attack. This is the same Hamas that announced it will sue Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Abu Mazen is responsible for both the incitement and the dangerous move at the ICC in The Hague.

The prime minister added, “We will continue to take strong action against the terrorism that has been trying to attack us since the founding of the state, and we will see to it that it does not achieve its goal.”

During his interrogation, Matrouk told investigators that he used the internet to learn about terror attacks. Matrouk claimed that watching numerous videos of IDF military responses to Hamas terror attacks and Israeli police reacting to Temple Mount riots, prompted him to carry out the stabbing attack in Tel Aviv.

Unfortunately, there are numerous training videos online that show how to stab and kill people. One such video, posted online last month by Hamas-affiliated sympathizers and shown below, instructs viewers on how to correctly stab a victim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjT1Y4pqAz8

According to Palestinian Media Watch, the “PA and Fatah paved the way for today’s stabbing attack in Tel Aviv. Recent PMW reports documented that PA and Fatah have been encouraging stabbings and other means of violence against Israelis.”

Both the PA and Fatah “encourage the use of violence against Israelis”, and PMW has “documented that this violence promotion in recent months has mentioned ‘stabbings’ and the use of ‘knives and cleavers’ specifically.”

A Magen David Adom (Israel’s Red Cross) paramedic who treated the victims described the scene: “There was mayhem around the bus. The wounded walked around, some outside the bus and two inside. All were fully conscious, with wounds in there chest, neck and limbs. We did an initial triage and evacuated them.”

Chief of police Yohanan Danino and Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovich arrived at the scene and were briefed on the attack.

(Video: Nadav Goldstein/Tazpit News Agency)

Staff Sergeant Almog Shilony, an IDF soldier in his 20s, was critically wounded on November 10 by an Arab terrorist near the central bus station in Tel Aviv. The assailant tried to grab the soldier’s rifle and then stabbed him several times. Shilony subsequently died of his wounds.

The most recent stabbing attack before this latest one occurred on January 11, when an Arab terrorist stabbed an Israeli with a screwdriver, moderately wounding him as he was exiting Jerusalem’s Old City.

By: Aryeh Savir
Staff Writer, United with Israel

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