'As soon as I noticed... I tried to hit the terrorist'

Off-duty officer who lost hand in Gaza helped chase down terrorist in Tel Aviv attack

Cpt. ‘Aleph’ says he was with IDF comrades when he saw incident and pursued assailant, who was shot dead; video shows terrorist stopped for pizza before attack

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Cpt. 'Aleph' (left) wounded in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv is seen at Ichilov Hospital alongside an IDF casualty officer, January 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
Cpt. 'Aleph' (left) wounded in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv is seen at Ichilov Hospital alongside an IDF casualty officer, January 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

An off-duty Israel Defense Forces tank officer who lost a hand during fighting in the Gaza Strip last year was among those who attempted to neutralize a terrorist who stabbed four people in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night.

“I fought in Gaza about a year ago. I was injured and lost my right hand. Today I am at the Tactical Command College, in the company commander course,” Cpt. “Aleph” said in a video distributed by the IDF.

“I went out with my friends from the course to Nahalat Binyamin, and during the outing, a terrorist came and tried to stab one of us. As soon as I noticed the incident, I tried to hit the terrorist and we chased him,” he said.

Aside from Cpt. Aleph, the victims in the attack in the Nahalat Binyamin neighborhood included two men aged 24 and 28 in moderate condition, and another man aged 59 in good condition, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

The Armored Corps officer said he would return to the course on Wednesday. He was lightly injured in the attack.

The terrorist, named as Abdelaziz Kaddi, a Moroccan national with a US green card, was eventually shot dead at the scene.

Medical rescue and security teams at the scene of a terror stabbing in Tel Aviv on January 21, 2025 (Magen David Adom)

Kaddi was flagged by security when he arrived in the country a few days ago but was nonetheless granted entry, a decision the Shin Bet security agency said late Tuesday that it was investigating.

Pizza stop

Before carrying out the attack, Kaddi visited a local pizzeria and was filmed on surveillance videos buying slices and speaking to the owner of the eatery.

Channel 12 news aired the footage of the terrorist ordering at the restaurant, and interviewed the owner.

Chaim Bassam, owner of Pizza and Tortilla in Tel Aviv, where the perpetrator of a terror attack on January 22, 2025, stopped for pizza before the attack. (Screen grab used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

“I only realized later when I got home and images were circulating on WhatsApp. That’s when I saw a photo of the terrorist,” Chaim Bassan, the owner of Pizza and Tortilla, told the outlet. “He was so close to us. We saw him. We talked to him.”

“A few minutes after he left the pizzeria, people began to run,” Bassan said. “They were shouting ‘terrorist’ and I heard gunfire. So we ran.”

“It didn’t occur to me that it was anything to do with him,” Bassan said, adding that Kaddi spoke to him in English with an Arabic accent and that he had remarked to him on his choice of language as he thought it was unusual. “He ate outside, and he even returned his plate, which not all Israelis do.”

Second attack in three days

The attack was the second terror stabbing in three days in the Israeli metropolis.

A man in his 30s was seriously injured in another terrorist stabbing in central Tel Aviv over the weekend before an armed civilian shot and killed the attacker. The terrorist in that incident was identified as Salah Yahye, 19, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

The attacks came two days after the first stage of a hostage-ceasefire agreement with Hamas went into effect, under which Israel will release up to 1,904 Palestinian security prisoners and detainees, including more than 150 terrorists convicted of murder and several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks, in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages.

Israel released 90 Palestinian security prisoners to the West Bank and East Jerusalem early Monday morning, hours after Hamas released three civilian hostages Sunday on the first day of the ceasefire.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

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