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Palestinian Stabs 15 in Tel Aviv Terror Attack

The Arab terrorist after his arrest.

The Arab terrorist after his arrest.

A Palestinian terrorist, in Israel illegally, got on a bus in Tel Aviv and stabbed commuters before being shot and caught by police.

A Palestinian terrorist wielding a knife wounded 15 Israelis, four seriously, as he attacked them on a bus in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.

The Palestinian, identified only as a 23-year-old resident of Tulkarem in Samaria, got on the number 40 bus that was filled with morning commuters and immediately attacked the bus driver, seriously wounding him and another passenger. The driver fought back and sprayed the terrorist with tear gas, thus thwarting a more severe attack.

The driver stopped the bus, opened the doors, and the terrorist began to flee. A police unit in the vicinity noticed the commotion and ran to the scene, chasing the terrorist and shooting him, wounding him in the leg. He 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.

One eyewitness told Ynet: “I was driving behind the bus. All of the sudden people began to get off the bus and run, screaming and crying hysterically. We did not know what to do and we were scared he [the terrorist] would come for us. Many ambulances arrived on the scene.”

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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.

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: Atara Beck, World Israel News