Seventeen people have been wounded after a Palestinian Muslim radical went on a stabbing spree against civilians riding a public transportation bus in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday.
The accused jihadi terrorist, 23-year-old Hamza Matrouk, was finally caught after security officers shot him in the leg while he was attempting to escape the scene and conduct stabbings at a second location. Islamist television, the ongoing situation at Jerusalem’s holy sites, and Israel’s recent 50-day war with Palestinian terror group Hamas reportedly motivated Martouk to conduct the attack.
Benny Boterashvili, the commander of the security force responsible for shooting the terrorist, said of the stabbing incident:
We identified in the area of the Maariv Bridge a large gathering, and people crying for help. After an initial assessment, we understood it was a terrorist incident. I and a team of three Nachshon fighters identified the terrorist and chased after him. We shot toward his legs, the terrorist collapsed and fell, we handcuffed him, and waited for the police to arrive.
Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq praised the attack against innocent civilians as “heroic and daring.” It is a “natural response to the occupation,” he added. Another Hamas official, Husan Badran, took to Facebook and described the attack as a “normal response.” He said that Hamas praises “this extraordinary act” and calls for “more devotion, as well as individual and collective resistance.”
Cartoons have surfaced on Arabic news sites and social media accounts praising the stabbing attack, reports the Times of Israel: