The Arab who assaulted a Bnei Brak resident on Tuesday was caught on Wednesday evening in a joint operation of the Shin Bet and Israel Police.
The 32-year-old Palestinian resident of a village near Shechem was caught in Petach Tikvah, and according to the Shin Bet, he had a permit to work in Israel. He is thought to have carried out the attack with an ax or hammer.
Despite the fact that the attack has all the hallmarks of a terror attack, the Shin Bet is still refraining from designating it as such and additional details of the investigation have been blocked from publication by a gag order.
Yitzchak Dahan, 47, a father of six, was attacked on his way to Shacharis in Givat Shmuel, where he is a Rosh Mesivta in a yeshivah.
He spoke to Kan News on Wednesday from his bed in Sheba Hospital. “I was on my way to Givat Shmuel like every morning for the past 15 years,” he told Kan. “I saw someone looking at me and he reached his hand into his bag. When I passed him he took something out and hit me on the head once and then again. I grabbed my head to stop the bleeding.”
Dahan said that after the attack, the passerby who called Magen David Adom told him that the Arab attacker himself told him to call for help.
“The attacker himself told him: ‘There’s a wounded Jew, go help him.'”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)