Terrorist in Ra’anana car ramming attack also tried to assassinate IDF Arabic spokesman

One of the terrorists confessed that he spotted the senior IDF Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee at a Ra’anana restaurant and followed him with a knife.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

One of the two terrorists arrested in the January car ramming and stabbing attack in Ra’anana had tried to assassinate the IDF’s Arabic spokesman several months ago.

During the investigation, one of the terrorists confessed that he spotted the senior IDF Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee, at a restaurant in Ra’anana,and began following him with a knife, trying to stalk Adraee in an attempt to assassinate him.

On January 15th, Muhammad Zaidat, 44, and Ahmed Zaidat, 24, who worked illegally in Ra’anana at a carwash, stole a vehicle and began a terror attack that killed one woman, Edna Bluestein, 79, and wounded 17 others.

In the January terror attack, after stealing a vehicle from the car wash, the terrorists then stole an additional vehicle by throwing its driver out onto the street.   Subsequently they used the car to ram into pedestrians.

An elderly woman was brought to the Meir hospital in Ra’anana severely injured, and was later identified as Edna Bluestein who died of her wounds.

In addition to elderly victims there were many teenagers and children wounded in the attack.

The suspects are from Bani Naim, close to Hebron and were blacklisted by Shin Bet for entering Israel illegally on several occasions in the past.

In January, a dozen lawmakers from the Likud party signed a letter that Arab workers from Judea and Samaria shouldn’t be allowed to enter areas within the green line to work.

“The time has come to say explicitly that no more Palestinian workers will be allowed to enter Israel,” read the letter, which received backing from Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli.

“Besides our security obligation, we also have a moral duty—we are not responsible for the livelihood of those who support the murder of Jews in the Land of Israel,” added the letter, noting that some three in four Arab residents of Judea and Samaria hold favorable views of Hamas in the wake of its Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel.