Back to the nightmare attacks Israel. An Israeli Arab man attacked some passersby with a knife Beer Shevafourth largest city in the country and “capital” of the southern regions shaped by the Negev desert.
The dead are four, including three women. The attacker was then caught and killed. Not by a police officer, but by a bus driver who recognized the danger and used the gun he was carrying.
The context in which the attack matured
Beer Sheva has always been a quiet city on the terrorist front. Compared to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem it is further away than the warmer borders with gaza and west bank. Even during the intifada of the 2000s, these parts saw fewer attacks than other major cities in Israel.
However, there is one undeclared boundary that often terrifies Beer Sheva residents alike. Around this large reference center for the residents of the Negev lives a community of ArabIsraeli members of communities not recognized by the state. These are desert Bedouins who have built several villages around Beer Sheva without government permission.
Municipalities have struggled for years to be recognized and thus receive all the essential benefits of the state. However, political disputes at times degenerated into quite violent tensions. Today’s attacker was actually an Arab Israeli from one of the unrecognized villages.
He arrived in Beer Sheva and first killed a woman at a gas station, then intentionally ran over a cyclist in the city center and finally, after getting out of his car, stabbed the pile and killed two other women.
There are a total of four victims, including three women. The assassin then wanted to continue his death trail in a bus. Here the driver realized the bad intentions and chased him to a nearby parking lot. When the ArabIsraeli citizen began beating him, he did not hesitate to use the pistol he regularly carried.
attacked Israel?
The Jewish state is now wondering whether today’s attack is Islamist in origin or whether it has to do with the context of tension surrounding the ArabIsraeli Negev. In any case, the episode caused not a little impression and emotion across the country.
Also because it was the third attack on the white weapon in just four days. Fortunately, such attacks, carried out in Jerusalem, had previously not claimed any casualties. The fear is palpable: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made no secret of his fears of a new terrorist escalation on the eve of Passover. An anniversary that roughly coincides this year with the start of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims.
Meanwhile, both Islamic Jihad and Gaza’s Hamas are cheering the attack. Not a real claim but an expression of support for both the recent attack and future new terrorist actions.