Yerushalayim Terrorist Stabber Sought to Get Shot by Soldiers

The victim of Friday’s stabbing terror attack in Yerushalayim on Friday afternoon was identified as Hannah Bladon, a 21-year-old exchange student from the United Kingdom who was attending Hebrew University. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.

Bladon’s murderer is a 57-year-old Arab named Jamal Tamimi, a resident of the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of Yerushalayim. Under questioning, Tamimi told interrogators that he stabbed Beldon in order to prompt soldiers to shoot and kill him. According to officials, Tamimi suffered from a number of mental issues, and had been in and out of psychiatric institutions for years. Just on Thursday he informed managers of a hostel in Haifa that he was leaving. The managers attempted to inform family members, but they had changed their phone number, after breaking off all communications with the father.

According to Tamimi, he returned to Yerushalayim on Thursday afternoon and called a family member, who told him that family members were not interested in seeing him. He told interrogators that after hearing that, he felt he had “nothing to lose,” and he went out and bought a knife, and got on the light rail, where he saw an armed soldier. It was then he decided to attack someone, in order to get the soldier to shoot him. Instead, Tamimi was disarmed by an off-duty police officer who tackled Tamimi immediately after the stabbing.

In a statement, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that “radical Islamic terrorism is striking capitals around the world. This time it struck Jerusalem. In the name of the entire people of Israel, I send my condolences to the victim’s family,” he said.