Three people were seriously injured in a stabbing attack on Sunday near Ashdod, in central Israel, according to emergency services.
“A knife attack took place at the Friendly shopping center in Gan Yavne
,” said Zaki Heller, spokesperson for Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, late in the evening.
“Rescuers treated three seriously injured people
,” who were hospitalized, he continued.
The police confirmed that a
“terrorist”
had
“stabbed three people”
, with
“two knives”
, before being
“neutralized”
by the municipal police.
“The suspect is believed to be 19 years old and from Hebron”
in the West Bank, a police spokesperson told AFP, without initially confirming whether the attacker had been killed.
Also read: In northern Israel, along the Lebanese border, tensions with Hezbollah are leading to fears of a “new October 7”
Several similar attacks have taken place in Israel in recent weeks, against the backdrop of war between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7 which caused the death of 1,160 people, the vast majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas and launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip that left 32,782 people dead, mostly civilians, according to the Islamist movement's Health Ministry.