It is one of the deadliest assaults in recent years in Israel.

Four people were killed Tuesday in a stabbing and ramming attack by a man in Beer Sheva, the main city in the Negev desert in southern Israel, one of the deadliest assaults in recent years in the world. country.

Without claiming responsibility for the attack, a spokesman for the armed Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Hazem Qassem, said on Al-Aqsa Voice radio that this "operation is a response to the policy of ethnic displacement practiced". by Israel against "the Palestinian people inside the occupied territories".

Neutralized by civilians

According to Israeli police, the suspect, who has not been identified, stabbed a woman at a gas station, then ran over a cyclist with his car before continuing on to a nearby shopping mall.

He then got out of his vehicle to stab a man and a woman.

Civilians present on the spot opened fire in the direction of the assailant and "neutralized" him, the Israeli police said, adding later that he had succumbed to his injuries.

Israeli media identified the assailant as Mohammed Abu al-Kiyan, a teacher from the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev, sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for forming a cell that planned to travel to Syria to to fight within the Islamic State organization, and for sermons praising the jihadist group.

In a statement, the Bedouin al-Kiyan clan "strongly" condemned the attack, an "individual" act it said, "which does not represent the law-abiding members of the clan who have always advocated living together".

“Terrorist” act

After the attack, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who had just returned from a summit in Egypt, held "consultations" with the public security minister and the police chief, his office in Jerusalem said.

He offered his condolences to the families of the victims of this "terrorist" act and praised the "courage" of the civilians who opened fire on the assailant to "avoid even more victims".

"We will take action against terrorists," he said, adding that the country's security forces were on "high alert".

From October 2015 and for months, Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Israel have been the scene of anti-Israeli stabbing attacks most often committed by young Palestinians

While such attacks have since declined, they continue to occur sporadically, especially in recent weeks, usually in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, two Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

  • Terrorism

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