451
Itongadol.- The IDF launched security raids on Tulkarm early on Thursday, the West Bank city from which a terrorist came from the previous day and carried out a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv.
Hamza Muhammad Hassan Matruch, a 23-year-old from the northern West Bank city stabbed a dozen commuters early Wednesday morning in a terrorist attack on a No. 40 bus in central Tel Aviv.
During initial questioning, Matruch said he had purchased the knife in Tulkarm and carried out the stabbing spree after entering Israel illegally.
He said he had been driven by last summer’s conflict in Gaza, unrest on the Temple Mount, and watching extremist Islamist content that glorifies “the reaching of heaven,” the Shin Bet added.
Matruch was taken for treatment at a local hospital after his arrest. A remand hearing took place in his absence at the Tel Aviv courthouse on Wednesday.
The condition of the bus driver who was stabbed and seriously wounded in the attack has improved, Sourasky Medical Center stated Thursday.
The driver, Herzl Biton, and seven other people injured in the attack remained hospitalized on Thursday.
Biton underwent surgery overnight and his life is no longer in danger, according to official medical sources at the hospital. Two other people injured in the attack remain in serious condition.
In Wednesday\’s attack, eyewitnesses said the attacker began stabbing Biton repeatedly in the upper body. The bus began swerving in its lane as Biton, who had been on the job for more than two decades, fought with the terrorist.
The swerving bus caught the attention of officers from the Prisons Service’s Nahshon Unit, who were driving behind the bus on their way to the Tel Aviv courthouse to pick up detainees. When the officers saw the bus come to a stop and passengers begin fleeing, they chased after the terrorist as he fled through parking lots and alleyways toward Hamasger Street.
The Prisons Service officers shot the attacker in the leg and placed him under arrest.