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Israeli PM blames PNA for stabbing attack in Tel Aviv

Xinhua, January 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Wednesday the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for a stabbing attack in central Tel Aviv, which left at least 21 people injured.

He said the attack, perpetrated by a young Palestinian man, was "a direct result of the poisonous incitement being disseminated by the Palestinian Authority against the Jews and their state."

Netanyahu noted that the Islamist movement of Hamas, which formed an historic unity government with the Fatah last April, has hailed the attack.

"This is the same Hamas that announced it will sue Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague," Netanyahu charged, adding that Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas "is responsible for both the incitement and the dangerous move at the ICC."

Izzat al-Risheq, member of Hamas' political bureau, commended the attack as a "bold, heroic act," according to Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper. Al-Risheq said the attack was "a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and terrorism against the Palestinian people."

Around 07:30AM (05:30AM GMT) on Wednesday, a knife-wielded Palestinian attacked passengers in a bus in central Tel Aviv. He stabbed at least nine people, including the driver, before he was shot and injured in his legs by the police.

Israeli medical teams said that four victims were in serious conditions, and at least 17 others were in a light-to-moderate condition.

Police said the attacker is Hamza Mohammed Hassan Matruk, a 23-year-old man from the refugee camp Tul Karm, who currently lives with his mother in Ramallah. He was lightly injured and is now being interrogated in hospital.

Chief of Police Yohanan Danino ordered police to raise the alert level nationwide following the attack.

No Palestinian organization has claimed responsibility for the attack and the Israeli police suspect the assailant was acting individually.

Recent months saw a surge of "lone-wolf" Palestinian attacks, in which Palestinians tried to kill Israelis by running-over vehicle attacks or with knives, killing a dozen people.

Most of the violence occurred in Jerusalem, around the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound, a holy place to Muslims and Jews. But some attacks occurred in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory which Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War. Endit