Nazareth woman’s family ‘knew from start’ she was no terrorist

The father of an Arab woman shot and wounded by security forces during a suspected attempted terror attack earlier this month insisted Thursday that he “said from the start she was innocent.”

On Wednesday, police said Nazareth resident Asra’a Abed, 30, was not a terrorist despite brandishing a knife at Afula’s central bus station on October 9, sparking a tense standoff with police that ended with her being shot multiple times. A joint Israel Police-Shin Bet investigation concluded that she suffered from mental health issues and was attempting to commit suicide by having police shoot her in presumed self-defense.

Abed has recovered from her bullet wounds, and the family expects her to be released to her home Thursday.

“She didn’t want to stab anyone. She’s an educated woman,” her father, Nazareth imam Zidan Abed, told Army Radio Thursday morning.

Abed has insisted his daughter was not a terrorist, since the day of the alleged attack.

Family members were investigated by police and Shin Bet officers hours after the incident, and were told that Abed was under extreme emotional stress after recently divorcing and losing custody of her 10-year-old daughter.

“We said from the start she was innocent. With God’s help, the court will release her home today,” Zidan Abed said.

“Her situation is okay. She’s educated, studied at the Technion, and wants to finish her master’s degree there,” he said. “She won’t hurt anyone.”

The fateful day she boarded the bus from Nazareth to Afula, a newly purchased kitchen knife in her bag, she was meant to go to the bank to pay her Technion tuition fees, he added.

He said he first learned his daughter was shot online. “We saw it on the internet, on Facebook — what had happened.”

Zidan Abed is reported by local media to be involved in interfaith work in the Galilee. “With God’s help, may we all live in peace,” he said at the end of the interview.

Prosecutors have not yet decided how they will handle Asra’a Abed’s case now that it is not being treated as a terror attack. She likely faces minor charges of carrying a dangerous weapon.

Police and Shin Bet investigators submitted their joint findings to state prosecutors Wednesday, saying they believed Abed did not plan to stab anyone when she brandished the knife at the station, but was pretending to be a Palestinian terrorist in the hope that she would be shot dead by security forces.

A video of the incident went viral both on Palestinian and Israeli social media, and was posted to mainstream media on both sides. In the video, Abed can be seen brandishing the knife, but not attacking, as several armed police officers and soldiers shout at her to put the knife down. After several tense minutes, a police officer arrives at a sprint, sees the woman holding the knife and fires at her lower torso.

https://youtu.be/nilgA_vjC3s

A security guard at the terminal initially told police he believed the woman was attacking him when she pulled the knife out of her purse while standing near him.

Police say she bought the knife shortly before boarding the bus in her hometown of Nazareth. Investigators were puzzled at why she boarded a bus with the knife but traveled the entire ride to Afula without carrying out an attack — or why she then brandished it in the Afula terminal around large numbers of police and soldiers.

Earlier in the investigation police said they thought Abed may suffer from mental health problems. Suspicions were confirmed after they discovered her history of suicide attempts and hospitalizations, the police report noted.

According to officials, a key indication she did not intend to hurt anyone was the video of the incident. Before taking out the knife, Abed can be seen talking to a young ultra-Orthodox man. Instead of stabbing him from that close proximity, she held her knife up for nearby security officers to see and started shouting.

Abed was initially hospitalized at the Poriya Hospital near Tiberias in moderate condition. Hospital officials say they took six bullets out of her body, apparently all fired from the same gun. Family members say she has made a full recovery.