Court extends detention of Arab citizen suspected in possible terror stabbing

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court extends the remand of a young Arab Israeli suspected of stabbing and severely injuring a man earlier this month, in what police are probing as a terror attack.

Muhammad Watad, a 21-year-old pharmaceutical student from the Arab village of Jatt, was detained on suspicion of stabbing 47-year-old Gedalyahu Ben Shimon, the head of Ramat Gan’s religious council, several times in the city on March 12.

Ben Shimon was severely wounded in the attack and paramedics rushed him to Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery. He emerged in stable condition.

Watad has been held in custody since the stabbing, but is reportedly insisting on his innocence before the court.

According to Ynet, the suspect denies being the black-clad man seen stabbing Ben Shimon on security camera footage from that day. Instead, he claims he was working in a nearby pharmacy, but ran out of the building once he heard alarms.

Police during the hearing confirm that officers did not find the knife used in the stabbing on Watad himself, and further add that they have not yet completed DNA and fingerprint tests that could link him to the weapon, Ynet reports.