01-Jul-16: Thursday evening Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack in Netanya

Netanya - an evening view, not from yesterday [Image Source]

It has been a day of turmoil, drama and tragedy.

In Netanya, the Mediterranean coast city of 200,000 some 30 km north of Tel Aviv, a Palestinian Arab man in his forties launched a stabbing attack - the second one to have seized Israel's headlines on Thursday - on Israelis shopping in the early evening.

The moral pygmies at the European-funded Ma'an News Agency call it "the second incident to result in a Palestinian being killed following an attack in less than 12 hours". We assume the various European governments who keep re-supplying the Ma'an financial budget since its inception are comfortable with that way of looking at a martyr-rich, jihad war - sorry, an "incident" - being waged against a civilian population.

The site of the armed attack on unarmed shoppers is a local outdoor produce market located near the intersection of Sheshet HaYamim and Shoham Streets near the city center. (Images here.) Times of Israel quotes police saying the attack was intended as an attack of terror.

Two people were stabbed and suffered injuries. One, evidently a Haredi man of about 40, has serious injures from multiple stab wounds to the upper body. (Knifing attacks by Arabs on Israelis are generally directed at the victims' upper bodies, especially the head.) We don't know his name at this stage.

The second victim is a woman of 62; her injuries are thankfully somewhat milder. She is identified by Israel National News as Luba Gadimov. Mrs Gadimov's daughter is being married today - Friday - and the mother is determined to be there. We wish the whole family much joy and good health.

Both victims were being treated last night at Netanya's Laniado Hospital.

Their attacker was shot dead at the scene by an alert armed security guard. The stabber's name, quoted by various media sources, is Wael Yousef Abu Saleh, 46. Numerous online Arabic-language news channels (for instance here) immediately conferred martyrdom on him, ensuring his act of attempted murder will now be added to Palestinian Arab tales of "glory" and UNRWA school curricula.

An Arab source says he was from the Shweika section of Tulkarem which Ha'aretz improbably calls "a Palestinian village just east of Netanya in the West Bank". Some village: the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said back in 2007 that Tulkarm had a population of 51,300 plus an additional 10,600 living in an what it terms an "adjacent refugee camp". The numbers are certain to have risen substantially n the past decade. There's a good chance the Ha'aretz editors have never been there or even gotten near.

In terms of the Oslo II Accord between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, Tulkarem is in Area A, defined as being subject to "full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority... Entry into this area is forbidden to all Israeli citizens." Also in Area A: Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and 80 percent of Hebron.

Israel's Channel 2 News reported during the evening that there was an ongoing search for accomplices "after eyewitnesses told police the assailant was dropped off at the market moments before he began stabbing passers-by".

They are probably not looking inside the presidential compound in Ramallah. They certainly should.