News
Attempted stabbing in Gush Etzion; individuals charged for inspiring terrorism, espionage
Violence continued yesterday when a Palestinian man pulled a knife and attempted to stab a soldier at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank yesterday. Israel Hayom reports that the man was Malik Talal Sharif, 22, from Hebron.
Meanwhile the victim of a stabbing on Wednesday, a Border Police officer, remains in critical condition. His attacker was also from Hebron.
As investigations continue into the violence, new information is coming to light about their level of coordination. An East Jerusalem man, Abed al-Aziz Meri, has been charged with inspiring one of the first attacks – the murder of Aharon Bennett and Nehemia Lavi in the Old City of Jerusalem on 3 October, and the attempted murder of Adele Bennett. Haaretz reports that Meri was active in Hamas and another terror group. According to the indictment filed against him, Meri allegedly convinced the attacker to should stab Israelis as revenge, after he was denied entry to the Temple Mount. Meri bought him the knife for the attacker and told him to die a martyr’s death rather than be taken alive. The double-murder was the first serious stabbing incident in the current wave of violence.
In other justice news, following the lifting of a court order, Israel Hayom and Yediot Ahronot report that Nasreen Hassan, a 40-year-old mother of seven from Haifa, has been charged with espionage and terror offenses. Hassan, an Israeli-Arab woman married to a Gazan man, is accused of joining a Gaza-based terror group, donating money to them, performing spy missions on their behalf and planning a bombing.
Hassan lived in both Israel and Gaza, and over the last year moved to Gaza but regularly visited relatives in Israel. She is alleged to be a member of Katibat al-Mujihadeen, who sent her on missions to photograph military facilities during her visits to Israel. The charge-sheet also claims that she was trained by the group in how to build suicide-bomb devices and was planning to attack a target in Israel. She was arrested in late October when re-entering Israel from Gaza.