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Itongadol.- Police on Thursday arrested a Palestinian man who entered Israel illegally and attempted to stab officers dispatched to detain him.
The officers apprehended the 22-year-old suspect in the central city of Ra’anana, and found a second knife on his person. No injuries were reported.
The man was taken for investigation at a Kfar Saba police station nearby.
Police have been on high alert sinceWednesday morning, when a Palestinian man who illegally entered Israel allegedly stabbed a dozen people on a city bus in Tel Aviv before being shot and arrested by police.
Hamza Matrouk, 23, of Tulkarem, told Shin Bet interrogators that he embarked on the stabbing spree in retaliation for Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer and the recent unrest on the Temple Mount.
He admitted that he was motivated by watching radical Islamic television programs, and spoke of “reaching paradise.”
Israeli security forces on Thursday raided three houses belonging to friends and relatives of Matrouk.
The joint Shin Bet and IDF operation searched the house of Hamza Matrouk near the West Bank city of Tulkarem and two other houses belonging to family members nearby.
Two Palestinians were arrested, Army Radio reported. The NRG news site identified them as a relative and a neighbor of Matrouk.