An emergency response team cleaned up bloodstains at the scene of a knife attack outside a shopping center in the southern city of Beersheba on Tuesday.
Photo: Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Updated March 22, 2022 4:02 p.m. ET
TEL AVIV, Israel – An attacker killed four people and seriously injured two others in southern Israel on Tuesday. He stabbed several people and rammed his car into a cyclist in one of the deadliest suspected terrorist attacks against Israelis in recent years.
The attacker, identified as a Bedouin Arab in his 30s from a town in southern Israel, was known to security services, Israel Police said. A security official said the attacker was detained in 2015 for supporting Islamic State and was arrested before attempting to join the Islamist militant group in Syria.
“To the best of our knowledge, he operated alone,” Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said in a televised media statement. He described the incident as a terrorist attack but did not explain the attacker’s motivation.
The attack comes at a time of rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem. As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaches, the Israeli security services are concerned about the possibility of a major escalation. Palestinian attackers also stabbed a civilian jogger in Jerusalem on Saturday and two police officers again on Sunday, although neither incident resulted in fatal injuries.
Tensions have also risen between the Bedouin communities and the Israeli authorities in the Negev, where disputes over land and construction are frequent.
According to the police, the attacker first stabbed and killed a woman at a gas station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. He then got in his car and rammed a cyclist before driving to a mall and stabbing several other people. The attacker was shot and killed by a passerby, police said.
Israeli medics said one victim, a woman, was pronounced dead at the scene, while three were later pronounced dead of their injuries while being treated at a hospital.
The attack was praised by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, but took no responsibility.
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Appeared in the March 23, 2022 print edition as Assailant Kills Four in Israel.