This Ongoing War: A Blog: 02-Dec-14: Yesterday's knifing attack at Gush Etzion Junction: prologue and epilogue

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

02-Dec-14: Yesterday's knifing attack at Gush Etzion Junction: prologue and epilogue

The knife attacker: Alleged
to be "mentally ill"

The woman who stabbed an Israeli civilian at Gush Etzion Junction yesterday [see "01-Dec-14: Knifing attacks north and south this morning"] is getting world-class treatment for her bullet-inflicted injuries today in Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem [source].

Both her medical condition and her survival (she was defined last evening as being in critical condition) are a consequence of her murderous actions being thwarted by Israeli armed security personnel who could so, so easily have just shot her in a different part of the body and ended her jihadist career cold. Instead she stands a chance of recovering, spending more time (again - read on) in an Israeli prison and getting back out onto the streets at some point to do whatever her passions next guide her to do.

The Palestinian Arab news agency Maan says

Witnesses said Israeli forces prevented the Palestinian Red Crescent from reaching her following the shooting.

That may be why she is still alive now.

The wooden-handled steak knife wielded by the stabber
in yesterday's attempt to murder at Gush Etzion Junction
[Image Source]

According to Palestinian Arab sources mentioned in a Times of London report, the steak-knife-armed woman is identified as Amal Taqatqa, 22, from the village of Beit Fajjar, near Bethlehem. In the laconic phrasing of the British report: "She has served time in Israeli jails", though she is of course innocent until tried and convicted by a court.

We found a March 2011 news report in a terror-friendly Arab media source ["Israel arrests mentally ill woman from Beit Fajjar"] that says

Israeli occupation forces arrested Friday evening a Palestinian young woman from Beit Fajjar north of Al-Khalil for allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli soldier. According to the woman’s family, the Israeli army has arrested Amal Jamal Taqatiqa, 19, near the Etzion crossroads in eastern Beit Fajjar claiming she attempted to stab a soldier. The family submitted reports confirming Taqatiqa’s mental illness to the Israeli Bethlehem liaison office seeking her release. But authorities are keeping her in custody [source]

Beit Fajjar: Soldiers "storming" outside the alleged stabber's
home yesterday [Image Source]

Worth noting (according to Times of Israel) that her village honoured the formerly mentally-ill woman's attempt at murder by engaging in a rock-throwing riot yesterday when IDF soldiers entered the town after the stabbing.

Maan reports it differently:

Locals in Beit Fajjar told Ma'an that over 30 Israeli military vehicles stormed the town shortly after the incident and ransacked Taqatqa's family home. Taqatqa's family denied claims that she attempted to stab an Israeli and said the Israeli army deliberately targeted her and shot her in cold blood.

Another Arab source ["Young Woman Seriously Injured Near Bethlehem"] takes a similar terror-friendly approach, referring to her as

Amal Fakhri Taqatqa, 22 years of age, from Beit Fajjar town, near Bethlehem. Taqatqa is a former political prisoner.

Still another prominent Palestinian Arab news source said that having been taken to an Israeli "hopsital", she

currently faces death... [The knifer] turned out to be a released prisoner who affiliates to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Allegedly.

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