Suspect in Purim attack plotted to harm Jews for a week — police

A Palestinian man suspected of assaulting seven Israelis with his car earlier this month in a Jerusalem terror attack told investigators that he plotted to harm Jews for a week beforehand, Israeli police said Monday.

Mohammad Salima, 21, from East Jerusalem’s Ras al-Amud neighborhood, confessed to assaulting Israeli soldiers in an attack that left six Border Police officers and a civilian injured on March 6, according to a police statement.

Salima told the police that a week beforehand, he planned to carry out an attack against Jews, bought an ax and kept it in his car. A day before the incident, the police said in a statement, Salima said he resolved to carry it out, and on the morning of March 6 he “left his house and began searching for victims.”

Espying the Border Police officers in the crosswalk outside a base on Route 1, he allegedly reversed at a high rate of speed into the six women, striking them and a 50-year-old cyclist.

Exiting the vehicle armed with the ax, he was shot by soldiers standing nearby, who incapacitated him before taking him into custody.

Following a joint investigation by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police, Israeli authorities extended Salima’s remand by a week an a half.

Police said they’d file an indictment against him soon.

The attack, coming during the Jewish holiday of Purim, broke a several-month spell of quiet following a spate of vehicular terror attacks in the capital and West Bank in October and November.