One dead, 8 wounded in West Bank

In the Tel Aviv area, there hadn’t been any attacks for the past two weeks.

‘He was stabbed outside, he was all slashed and bloody. “We didn’t know what happened and then someone near the door shouted, ‘There’s a terrorist'”. The worshipers quickly closed the door and struggled with Mahmoud for a few minutes as he tried to force entry. A blood-spattered floor was littered with plastic gloves.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the attacker attempted to enter a synagogue inside the building. The attacker in the stabbing incident was captured by police and only identified as a 36-year-old Palestinian father of five from the West Bank. Police said that a Palestinian man drove by a line of cars sitting in traffic and fired multiple bullets before “intentionally” crashing into a group of people. Three people, including Schwartz and another Palestinian, were killed. Also dead was an Israeli citizen and a Palestinian man, though police said it was unclear if the Palestinian killed was hit by the attacker’s fire or that of Israeli forces.

Last night, a man who declined to speak with reporters, walked out of Maimonides and slowly lowered the US and Israeli flags to half-staff.

The U.S. Department of State said it extended its condolences to Schwartz’s family and friends. In a statement, the school said, “The entire Maimonides School community is profoundly saddened as we mourn the tragic loss of our recent graduate Ezra Schwartz, Class of 2015, who was murdered in a terrorist attack today in Israel”. It was the first of two attacks in Israel that day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “murderous terror” attack, saying that whoever condemned the attacks in France needs to condemn the attacks in Israel.

A police spokeswoman said the assailant was apprehended and that he had attacked worshippers who gathered for afternoon prayers in a shop that sells Jewish religious items in the building.

The violence since the start of October has killed at least 86 people on the Palestinian side, including one Arab Israeli, and at least 15 Israelis, as well as the American.

This is the latest in a two-month long outburst of violence between Israelis and Palestinians following tensions over a holy site in Jerusalem. Much of the Israeli-Palestinian violence has been focused on the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, but Thursday’s attack in the economic hub of Tel Aviv returned the unrest to the Israeli heartland.

There can be no justification for a spate of deliberate deadly attacks by Palestinians on civilians over the past week in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories which displayed a clear contempt for human life, said Amnesty worldwide.