Man knifed in Atarot industrial zone

By YIGAL GRAYEFF
The Atarot industrial park in Jerusalem on Thursday became the latest location for what has become a spate of terror attacks in recent days when a Palestinian stabbed a man at a slaughter house, wounding him lightly. In a separate incident in the park, two Palestinians attacked a carpenter and stole his pistol before fleeing the area, although the victim was not hurt. Police said that Hananel Elbo, 26, was opening the door of a truck at Glatt Chicken's factory early in the morning when he was stabbed by a Palestinian. The assailant fled and Elbo was taken to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. Police began a search for Elbo's assailant and the gun thieves using helicopters as well as dozens of officers on the ground, but ended the manhunts in the early afternoon without success. The police left one car to patrol the area, although spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said that this was a routine deployment. Work at Glatt Chicken was back to normal by mid-afternoon, but employees declined to carry out interviews, having been forbidden to do so by the company's owner. The workers' only comment was that the owner had fled to a hotel to avoid the press. The stabbing incident was the fourth terror attack against civilians in the West Bank in three days. Two people were injured in a knife attack in Gush Etzion on Tuesday and on Wednesday, one person died and another was seriously injured in two separate shooting incidents in Samaria. Despite the incident on Thursday, managers at Atarot businesses remained defiant. "We got through the first Intifada and we got through the second one. We hope there won't be another one," said one manager, who added that the morning events didn't make him afraid. A manager in another company expressed a similar fearlessness, saying that the day was like any other day. "Everybody who lives in Israel is in danger, whether you are here or in Tel Aviv. They don't fire on soldiers there? What's the difference?" he said. The business has 30 Arabs employees, who make up most of the workers. "We have worked with them for years and I have been alone here at night with them and I am not afraid," the manager said. During the conversation, the owner of the business entered the room and stopped the interview, requesting that the name of the company and its employees not be used. "I think that every word about Atarot in the press causes damage to Atarot," the owner said. "Everything is good here, everything is excellent." Thursday's attack came just over two months after a 42-year-old man was stabbed in the neck while waiting for a bus in the industrial park. The victim, who was moderately wounded, managed to make his way to a nearby police station after the attack.