Two Israeli civilians were murdered and two others were wounded in a terror stabbing attack in central Israel on Sunday morning, local authorities said.
The Times of Israel reports the terrorist attacker, a West Bank Palestinian, stabbed the victims at three different locations before being shot dead by a police officer.
The stabbings took place during morning rush hour in the city of Holon, near Tel Aviv.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (C) arrives at the scene of a reported stabbing attack in Holon in the southern suburb of Tel Aviv on August 4, 2024. Two people were killed and two others were wounded in the attack, Israel’s emergency medical service said, with police reporting a Palestinian suspect was “neutralised”. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty)
“This was a complex and difficult terror attack. The casualties were at three separate locations, approximately 500 meters from each other,” Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service medics said, per the report.
The Islamist group Hamas, which is at war with Israel in Gaza, said in a statement seen by Reuters the stabbing attack was a “natural response” to Israeli attacks on Palestinians and to the assassination of the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, last week in Tehran.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s issued the following remarks Sunday in the wake of the attack:
This morning there was a murderous terrorist attack in Holon. I send condolences to the families of those who were murdered and best wishes for a recovery to the wounded. I commend the police officers who engaged and eliminated the terrorist. We will settle accounts with whoever cooperated with him.
Our fight against terrorism is relentless. I commend the IDF and the ISA for their cooperation yesterday in Tulkarm. Our forces eliminated terrorists who had organized to murder many Israelis, and they saved many lives thereby.
The State of Israel is in a multi-front war against Iran’s axis of evil. We are striking every one of its arms with great force. We are prepared for any scenario – both offensively and defensively.
I reiterate and tell our enemies: We will respond and we will exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us, from whatever quarter.
At the same time, we are making a supreme effort, on a daily basis, to return all of our hostages. I emphasize – to return all of our hostages, without exception. We have an ironclad commitment to return all of them – the living and the deceased.
Therefore, I instructed the delegation to leave for Cairo yesterday, in order to continue the negotiations. I insist that the maximum number of living hostages be freed in the first stage of the deal, and that the leverage for pressing for the release of all of hostages later be preserved.
I am prepared to go very far to release all of our hostages, while maintaining the security of Israel. Our commitment stands in complete contrast to the leaks and mendacious briefings on the issue of our hostages.
These briefings harm the negotiations and, to my great regret, they also mislead the hostages’ dear families. They create a false impression that Hamas has agreed to a deal, while the Government of Israel is opposed to it.
The complete opposite is true. The simple truth is, that as of now Hamas has not agreed to the most basic conditions of the outline.
While we have not added even a single demand to the outline, it is Hamas which has demanded to add dozens of changes. It has not withdrawn its demand that Israel not be able to return to the war.It demands that we withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah Crossing – its lifelines, which would allow it to rearm and rebuild its strength. It is important to determine the principle – we are not leaving from there.
Hamas is also unprepared to allow any mechanism to check for and prevent the passage of munitions and terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip. It is doing all this because it wants to recover and rebuild, and return again and again to the massacre of October 7, as it has promised to do.
The fact is that it is Hamas which is preventing the release of our hostages, and which continues to oppose the outline, and not the Government of Israel, which has accepted it.
Whoever, like us, wants the release of our hostages needs to direct the pressure onto Hamas, and not onto the Government of Israel.
For our part, we will continue to apply military pressure on Hamas and its senior figures, until the return of all of our hostages and the achieving of all of the objectives for the war.
