Man badly wounded in Tel Aviv stabbing following row over an electric scooter

A 37-year-old man was left badly wounded after being stabbed by a group of teenagers earlier this week in a late-night Tel Aviv altercation, police and hospital officials said.

The assailants stabbed their victim, a father of two, after trying to argue with him over a rentable electric scooter as he returned home from a friend’s birthday at a bar on the city’s Rothschild Boulevard.

At a scooter rack on the sidewalk, his attackers argued with him over a scooter he had already approached to pay for.

Footage of the incident captured from the security cameras of a nearby cafe displayed the four assailants cornering their victim as he stood near the rack.

In under a minute, one of the young men can be seen stabbing the victim in the leg, then strolling away with the rest of the group. The wounded man then hobbled on the sidewalk for a short while before collapsing, drawing the attention of passersby.

A friend of the victim whose birthday he celebrated that night, told Israel’s Channel 12 News that he heard bits and pieces of the incident over the phone.

״חיפשו את מי לדקור״: אדם בן 37 נדקר בצורה קשה ללא כל סיבה על ידי חבורת נערים בתל אביב: אירוע חריג ומזעזע ברוטשילד בתל אביב במוצ״ש האחרון, אדם יצא להוציא קורקינט לאחר שישב בבר סמוך, וחבורת נערים שבדיוק עברה שם פנתה אליו, חיכו שהוא יפתח את הקורקינט ואז אמרו לו ״תביא את זה, זה… pic.twitter.com/7X0fkurUwl

— daniel amram – דניאל עמרם (@danielamram3) January 6, 2025

“I received a call from him in the middle of the night, but I didn’t hear his voice, just noises in the background and shouting. When I ran out of the bar, I saw [him] lying in a pool of blood, unconscious,” the unnamed friend said.

“The boys approached him and told him not to touch the scooter because ‘it’s theirs.’ He tried to calm them down and told them there were enough scooters for everyone, but it didn’t help,” he continued.

Paramedics took the badly injured victim to Ichilov Hospital, where he remains in intensive care.

Disillusioned by the fact that police have yet to catch the assailants, family and friends of the victim took to social media in hopes of advancing their search.

“Almost four days after the incident, we don’t know what’s going on with the investigation,” the victim’s friend told Channel 12. “They told us that the case is being handled, but in the meantime the attackers are walking around free.”

A spokesperson for the Tel Aviv District Police told The Times of Israel that their  investigation is still underway.

“I hope that in the coming days we will have something,” he said. “We have leads, but at this stage there is no update.”