Police said it caught the driver about four kilometers from the scene of the attack in a shopping center near Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, adding that he was neutralized by officers while attempting to ram a police car.
Police later identified the attacker as a 53-year-old Palestinian from a village near Jenin in the northern West Bank, who is married to an Arab Israeli woman from the Umm al-Fahm, adding that he entered Israel illegally. However, the IDF said that the suspect has been living inside Israel illegally for at least a decade and did not re-enter the West Bank in the last few years. past ten years.
Assi Aharoni, head of the police spokesperson division, reported that after the terrorist hit the pedestrians, he continued on his way, recognized police forces and tried to hit a police car and a police officer. “He was shot and neutralized by the police, and that ended the attack,” he said, adding that the man got out of the car and threatened the police officers with a screwdriver. “We are still conducting scans to see if he took advantage of the opportunity and acted alone, or if there were other accomplices.
The incident was reported at 4:18 p.m. to Magen David Adom’s (MDA) emergency dispatch center in the Sharon region.
When asked whether the police believe the terrorist also wanted to harm passersby in the shopping center, Police commissioner Daniel Levi said: “When a terrorist goes out and brutally harms people as they drive home and continues on his journey, we assume that he intends to continue harming.”
The commissioner was also asked if there was a warning before the attack, and referred to the tense period as the month of Ramadan approaches. “As you know, we are approaching Ramadan, I say Ramadan Kareem to all Muslims – if anyone tries to harm or spoil the holiday with provocations or such events, we are prepared and ready to deal with each of them. I call on all Muslims in the country to celebrate the holiday. There are quite a few warnings of attacks, and therefore we are prepared and deployed everywhere,” he said.
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