Bus occupants stabbed in Tel Aviv
January 21, 2015
A stabbing rampage on a commuter bus in central Tel Aviv ended on Wednesday in the arrest of the assailant. Israeli police said the 23-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed the bus driver and then passengers.
It was the latest in a string of attacks in recent months, some of them fatal, amid heightened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.
Tel Aviv police commander Bentzi Sau said the bus driver resisted the attack and "in this way the terrorist was stunned."
Prison officers gave chase
Sau said prison officers traveling in a passing vehicle saw the attack. The officers gave chase and caught the man in a nearby street and shot him in the leg as he tried to escape.
Another police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the Palestinian was a resident of the town of Tulkarm in the West Bank.
"We believe it was a terror attack," Rosenfeld said. He said four people were seriously hurt and another five sustained lighter wounds.
The alleged stabber was in custody and the police were questioning him he said.
Most of the attacks in recent months have occurred in Jerusalem, including the killing of five people during an assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.
ipj/ksb (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)