Kiryat Ata man stabs Jew after mistaking him for Arab

A Jewish man was hospitalized with light to moderate wounds after he was stabbed in a parking lot in Haifa suburb of Kiryat Ata by a Jewish man who mistook him for an Arab, in what authorities are characterizing as an apparently misdirected hate crime. The assailant was apparently seeking to harm an Arab in revenge for a series of Arab terror attacks on Jews.

According to Army Radio, the attacker, an Israeli Jew, approached an Arab man near Kiryat Ata’s Ikea furniture store and asked him if he was Arab. The Arab man was reportedly frightened by the question, and said he was not.

Minutes later, the attacker identified another passerby, concluded he was Arab from his appearance, and proceeded to stab him in his upper torso.

The victim, it turned out, was an Israeli Jew.

Police took the perpetrator of the failed apparent revenge attack into custody.

The victim was evacuated to a local hospital with a stab wound in his upper torso.