Youth who stabbed Arab 'a serial attacker'

Police tell court 16-year-old boy who stabbed 42-year-old man in Jerusalem on Thursday suspected of attacking Palestinians in east Jerusalem, near West Bank settlements

Efrat Weiss|Last update: 11.20.09 , 13:34

A 16-year-old youth suspected of stabbing Jamil Abdullah, 42, in Jerusalem on Thursday may have also carried out a series of attacks against Arabs and Palestinians, the police said Friday during a remand hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court.

The court ruled that the youth would remain in custody five more days.

The Jerusalem Police believe that Thursday's stabbing incident at the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood was nationalistically motivated. The police told the court that the youth had attacked Arabs and Palestinians near the Tomb of Simeon the Just in east Jerusalem, near the settlement of Carmel in South Mount Hebron and near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar.

The youth's lawyer, Attorney Ariel Herman, said that his client was "a normative youth."

Suspect in court (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

The suspect arrived at the Russian Compound police station about three and a half hours after the incident and turned himself in. He underwent a security check, during which the police found a penknife which he allegedly used to stab the Arab man.

According to the suspect, he used the knife in "self-defense" after Abdullah had attacked him.

Abdullah, 42, the father of five from the village of Shoafat in the Jerusalem area, was evacuated to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital with moderate abdomen wounds. He is still hospitalized in moderate condition and cannot get out of bed.

'Hope he is punished as an Arab would be'

Abdullah was stabbed while waiting for a bus. "It was very quick," he told Ynet. "I was sitting in the bus station, and two minutes later someone came from behind, stabbed me and escaped."

He said he was not alone when he was stabbed. "There was another old man sitting there. Before I was stabbed I managed to ask him which buses had already passed. When I told him I was stabbed, he just looked at me and didn't say a thing. Then a bus arrived and he just got on it and left."

He is convinced he was stabbed for being an Arab, adding that he has many Jewish friends. "Even if I would see him now, I would have nothing to say to him. It must be a problem with his education or something stemming from the behavior at home.

"I am not an extremist and not violent. I have a lot of Jewish friend. They all came to visit me. I am not a judge and not a police officer, but I hope he gets the same punishment an Arab would get for stabbing a Jews. Of course I'm angry, but it's basically a person's luck, being stabbed in the left side of the stomach and staying alive. Thank God."