JERUSALEM, Mar 23 (NNN-PNA) – Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, vowed to take a tough stance against “terrorists,” after an Israeli Arab citizen killed four people in the city of Beersheba.
“We will take strong action against terrorists,” Bennett said, following an evaluation of the attack and consultations with Public Security Minister, Omer Bar-Lev and Israel’s police chief, Kobi Shabtai.
“We will also pursue and apprehend those who aided and abetted them,” he said, adding, the security forces are “on maximum alert.”
Bennett also offered his condolences to the victims’ families and expressed his concern for those who were injured in the attack.
Four people were killed and two others injured yesterday in Beersheba, by a knife-wielding assailant who was later shot dead by two armed civilians passing by, according to the Israeli police.
The assailant fatally stabbed a woman at a gas station, after getting out of his car near a shopping mall. He then went back to his car and ran over a bike rider before stepping out of the car again to fatally stab another man and woman, the police said in a statement.
The state-owned Kan TV news reported that, the attacker is an Israeli Arab citizen, a Bedouin resident of the village of Hura, in the Negev Desert. According to Shabtai, the suspect had previously served prison terms for attempting to join the Daesh militant group in Syria.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which lasted about eight minutes and is the deadliest in Israel, in the past few years.
Police were deployed throughout Israel to “avoid copycat attacks,” Shabtai told reporters.– NNN-PNA
