Woman injured in Rosh Ha’ayin in terror stabbing
Victim lightly wounded; female attacker subdued by security guard and arrested
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
A young Arab Israeli woman stabbed a 30-year-old woman in the central Israeli city of Rosh Ha’ayin Sunday afternoon, the Israel Police said.
A security guard in the area who witnessed the attack, along with other bystanders, subdued the stabber without firing shots, and took the knife from her hand and another from her bag, police said.
The victim, approximately 28 years old, was lightly injured by the assailant, with stab wounds to the arm, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
The victim was “shocked” that such a thing could happen in Rosh Ha’ayin.
“She looked Arab, with a head covering, but didn’t seem suspicious. I was concentrating on my phone. She didn’t shout anything that gave her away, like ‘Allahu Akhbar,'” the victim told the Walla news site.
But suddenly, the assailant took out a knife and started to attack her.
“I threw my bag at her and screamed loudly. She kept stabbing me until some people arrived and tried to pull her off,” the victim said.
“She tried to stab them too,” she added.
The assailant had an Israeli identification card and lives in the nearby Arab village of Kfar Kassem. She was approximately 23 years old, police said. She was not injured during her arrest.
The victim was treated by paramedics at the scene and then taken to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva for further treatment.
“When we arrived at the scene, the victim was brought to us by security personnel,” Magen David Adom medic MDA medic Eli Fachter said. “The victim was fully conscious as we transported her in the ambulance. She was in stable condition.”
Police said the stabber was arrested and being interrogated.
Sunday’s stabbing ended a nine-day stretch without terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank.
“I’m still in shock that I’m part of the statistics,” the victim told Walla news.
In the past six months since the ongoing wave of terror began in October, 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals have been killed. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
