Jewish man stabbed in back in suspected Jerusalem terrorist attack

Wounded man in moderate condition as police search for Arab suspect near Old City

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Paramedics with man who was stabbed in Jeruslaem. (photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM)
Paramedics with man who was stabbed in Jeruslaem.
(photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM)
A 32-year-old Jewish man is recovering after being stabbed in the back with a screwdriver, allegedly by an Arab suspect, on a downtown Jerusalem street on Sunday evening.
According to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, the attack took place shortly after 6 p.m. on Hanevi’im Street, from which the suspect fled by foot toward Damascus Gate.
Shortly after the unidentified victim was stabbed, Magen David Adom paramedics arrived at the scene to treat the man and transfer him to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Rosenfeld said.
Multiple road blocks were erected in the area as police continue to search for the suspect, he said, adding that the attack is being investigated as nationalistically motivated.
In response, Hamas praised the stabbing on Sunday evening, calling it “a natural response to the crimes of the occupation,” according to Palestinian news site Al-Resalah.
The stabbing follows a spate of similar attacks that occurred on the same day last week in Tel Aviv and the West Bank, killing one woman and an IDF soldier.
On November 10, Dalya Lemkus, 26, was murdered and two others were wounded by an Islamic Jihad operative wielding a knife at the Alon Shvut junction in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank.
The incident occurred meters away from the location where three Israeli teens – Eyal Yifrah, Naftali Fraenkel and Gil-Ad Shaer – were kidnapped and then killed in June.
A guard stationed at the entrance to the settlement shot the terrorist, seriously wounding him.
The IDF transferred the two surviving victims to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem and Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital, where they were treated for stab wounds to the jaw and stomach.
Hours earlier in Tel Aviv, 20-year-old Sgt. Almog Shiloni of Modi’in was repeatedly stabbed by an Arab man armed with a knife in his upper torso near the Hagana train station.
Passersby at the scene came to the assistance of the victim, pushing the suspect off of him, who then fled the area, but was found and arrested by responding officers shortly thereafter.
Shiloni, who served in the air force, subsequently died from his wounds, and was posthumously promoted to the rank of a staff-sergeant.
Ben Hartman and Dov Lieber contributed to this report.