Knife-Wielding Arab Israelis Arrested for Planning Attack on Jerusalem Synagogue

TEL AVIV – Three Israeli-Arabs were stopped outside of a Jerusalem synagogue Sunday morning on suspicion of planning a knife attack.

The suspects were caught with large knives outside the synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe. At the time the synagogue was full of worshipers who had come for morning prayers.

The synagogue, which belonged to the late Chief Rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, also serves as a Yeshiva – a Talmudic college for some 300 young men.

“The merit of the Torah that we’re learning, it saved us,” one of the students said. “We want to thank Hashem [God] for the miracle that he did.”

Photos making the rounds on social media show one of their weapons to be a broken pairs of scissors with the handle wrapped in duct tape.