The mother of an 18-year-old woman killed in a combined ramming and stabbing terrorist attack in northern Israel on Friday recounted moments of terror and grief, as authorities detailed the assailant’s movements during the deadly spree.
Einat Maor, whose daughter Aviv Maor was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist, said Sunday that her son, who was with Aviv at the time, called her in panic moments after the stabbing. “He screamed into the phone, ‘Mom, they stabbed Aviv, come here fast,’” she told ynet, breaking down in tears.
Maor said she drove at high speed while calling police and an ambulance. “When I arrived, she was already lying in a ditch, covered in blood,” she said. “I screamed, ‘Why aren’t you saving her?’ And then I understood that there was probably nothing to do. She was simply gone.”
Police identified the attacker as Ahmad Abu al-Rub, 34, an undocumented Palestinian from Qabatiya in the northern West Bank. Authorities said he began the attack by ramming his pickup truck into Shimshon Mordechai, 68, from Beit Shean, killing him. He then carried out the fatal stabbing of Aviv Maor.
About 50 minutes after the attack began, the assailant was shot and subdued by security forces. He was later hospitalized in moderate condition, police said.
Aviv Maor was from Kibbutz Ein Harod Ihud. Her mother described her as a young woman devoted to animals from an early age. “She loved animals since she was little,” Maor said. “She had rabbits, guinea pigs and even a parrot. She started riding horses at a very young age on the kibbutz, and over the years it grew into a passion.”
Maor said her daughter completed a course for horse-riding instructors with distinction and was working as a riding instructor. She was due to enlist in the IDF and had been assigned to serve as a rescue swimmer in the Air Force.
“She was a child of light, a child who loved everyone,” her mother said. “Everywhere I went, people told me what a wonderful, kind girl she was. She was beautiful, a good daughter and a good sister.”
Maor said her husband had recently arranged for Aviv and her sister to spend five days together in Bucharest. “I told him, ‘Bucharest is one of the safest cities in the world,’” she said. “And then she is run over and stabbed here, right near home.”
She called for her daughter’s memory to be honored through acts connected to animals. “I want everyone to remember her,” Maor said. “Anyone with horses or dogs can commemorate her, so she can keep spreading her goodness in the world.”
Maor also voiced anger that the terrorist survived. “That they didn’t shoot this terrorist in the head while he was standing next to my daughter’s body, and that I now have to know he’s lying in a hospital guarded by 20 police officers — it’s unimaginable,” she said.
She sharply criticized what she described as Israel’s policy toward terrorists, accusing the government of failing to impose harsh consequences. “A right-wing government boasts about security and the death penalty for terrorists, but there is no governance and nothing,” she said.
Maor added that years of repeated terrorist attacks had left the country traumatized. “There isn’t a family without trauma,” she said. “Children are murdered, soldiers are killed. I am heartbroken over what has become of my country.”