The Palestinian Bedouin was shot dead by a passerby after he carried out the attack, injuring two others.
A Palestinian man has been shot dead after carrying out a knife attack near a shopping mall in the southern Israeli city of Beer al-Sabe (Beer Sheva), killing at least four people and injuring two others.
The alleged attacker was identified by local media as 33-year-old Ahmed al-Qiaan, a teacher who came from the city of Hura in the Naqab (Negev) region, and was detained for alleged links to the ISIL (ISIS) group. . . He was shot dead by a passerby at a gas station, Israeli police said on Tuesday.
“There appears to be a single terrorist who went on a knife-edge drive,” police spokesman Eli Levy said Tuesday, commenting on Channel 13 TV. “A civilian took the initiative and shot and killed him.”
The medics said three women and a man were killed by the assailant, and that at least two other people were injured, one critical.
Palestinian media report that Israeli police carried out a raid in Hura later on Tuesday, surrounding the streets and residence of al-Qiaan. An Israeli court in 2015 sentenced him to four years in prison after he accused an ISIL member.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said in a statement that security forces were “on high alert”.
“We will take strong action against terrorist operations. We will pursue and arrest those who provided assistance to them,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, Hamas, the group that controls the occupied Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, praised the attack.
Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanou said “crimes of occupation” against the Palestinian people could only be met with such “heroic acts”.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Tariq Salmi said the attack was “a natural response to the crimes of the Naqab occupation”, adding that Israel “once again realizes that our people are not capitulating”.
Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab have long faced discrimination as Israel has advanced plans to replace Bedouin villages with Jewish-only cities. They are often denied government services, including water, electricity and educational facilities.
Some 300,000 Palestinian Bedouin, who are of Israeli nationality, live in the region, which accounts for about half the land mass.
At least 30 percent of them live in some 35 “unrecognized” villages under threat of demolition, and are considered by the Israeli government as “carriers”.
Israeli forces have regularly carried out demolition orders in the area, arguing that these villages lack building permits, but residents have said it is impossible to get a permit to build legally.
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