JERUSALEM — A knife-wielding Palestinian went on a stabbing spree on a bus in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 13 people, four of them seriously, before he was shot and arrested, a police spokesman said.
The assault was the latest in a series of “lone-wolf” attacks by Palestinians, who’ve used knives and cars to attack Israelis on the streets in recent months.
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The attacker was identified as Hamza Matrouk, 23, from a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Police said he’d told investigators that he’d acted in response to Israel’s military campaign last summer in Gaza, tensions over a contested holy site in Jerusalem and Internet videos promising paradise to “martyrs.”
Witnesses said the man, who had been riding the bus, went up to the driver and stabbed him before turning on the passengers. After the passengers fled the vehicle, the assailant got off and stabbed a woman on the street.
Officers of Israel’s prison service who’d been in a vehicle behind the bus said they’d chased the man into an alley and shot at his legs before he was taken into custody.
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