Soldier lightly wounded in likely Tel Aviv terror stabbing

Police say suspected assailant was a 17-year-old Palestinian male.

By BEN HARTMAN
Updated: MAY 31, 2016 04:50
MDA responds to terror stabbing (photo credit: COURTESY MDA)
MDA responds to terror stabbing
(photo credit: COURTESY MDA)
A 19-year-old Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded a soldier in Tel Aviv Monday evening in what police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) are investigating as a likely terrorist attack.
Tel Aviv District Police said that at 7:05 p.m. they received a report of a stabbing outside 132 Yigal Allon Street.
Police said a Palestinian teen with a screwdriver stabbed and lightly wounded a 19-year-old soldier at the scene, before he was cornered by bystanders in an apartment building nearby.
A cellphone video showed the attacker handcuffed at the top of a stairwell, with the two policemen detaining him shouting at an irate crowd of civilians to clear the area.
Magen David Adom paramedic Roi Engel treated the wounded soldier.
“When we arrived at the scene, we saw a 19-year-old man lying on the ground conscious with stab wounds to his upper body. He was calm and spoke to us. We gave him fist aid,” he said.
Police said the investigation is ongoing, but that the attack appears to be “nationalist” in nature.
The stabbing and the subsequent deployment of police and emergency personnel led to gridlock in one of Tel Aviv’s busiest areas, but the streets were cleared within a little more than an hour.