‘We know the terrorist personally’ – Husband of stabbing victim

The terrorist and her family “live right in front of us,” said Dvir Cohen, husband of the stabbing victim.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The husband of the Jewish woman who was stabbed on Wednesday morning in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood Shimon HaTzadik (Sheikh Jarrah) revealed that he and his wife are personally acquainted with the 14-year-old Arab girl who is believed to have carried out the terrorist attack.

Dvir Cohen said he and his wife Moriah are neighbors of the suspect. “[The terrorist’s family] knows us,” Cohen told Hebrew language media. “They live right in front of us.”

According to Cohen, the suspect waited until his wife left their home to walk her children to school, and “closely followed her” for a significant distance.

Noting that his wife was walking with five children, Cohen expressed his relief that they were not harmed in the attack.

“Apparently, [after stabbing the victim] the terrorist panicked and fled. If she had continued [the attack] – I do not know how it would have ended and I do not want to imagine. “

Cohen said his wife “feels well” and is in good spirits. “We will continue to live” in Shimon HaTzadik, he added. “This is part of our life’s mission.”

Ynet reported that the terrorist is a member of a family in the neighborhood that is currently fighting an eviction case.

In August 2021, Israel’s Supreme Court floated an arrangement which would see Arab families facing evictions stay in their homes, on the condition that they pay a symbolic amount of rent to the Nahalat Shimon organization, which has ownership rights over the homes.

The families would need to pay some $465 annually, a compromise which would “give us breathing room for a good many years until either the land is properly regulated or there is peace,” according to Justice Yitzhak Amit.

The deal was vehemently rejected by Arab families.

Calling the agreement “oppressive” and a smokescreen for “ethnic cleansing” and “forced expulsion,” the families said they refused to accept an agreement which puts them “at the mercy of settler organization.”