Forces capture terrorist after deadly attack
Months before he carried out a deadly terror attack in the suburban, central Israeli city of Ra'anana, a resident of village Bani Na'im near Hebron attempted to assassinate a senior IDF officer, Israeli security officials said on Wednesday.
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Ahmed Zidat recognized the IDF's Arabic language spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee in Ra'anana and decided to kill him; he wanted to carry out an impactful terror strike, but did not have a knife with him. Zidat followed the officer, who is a familiar figure among Arabic speakers, and returned to where he knew Adraee to be but he had already left.
Ahmed Zidat and his cousin, Mohammed Zidat, were indicted on Wednesday for carrying out an attack last month, which killed one woman and wounded 18 others in a killing spree involving car rammings and stabbings in several locations around the city.
The two, who were living illegally in Ra'anana without proper security clearance to enter Israel, began their killing spree by commandeering a vehicle from a distraught and traumatized woman. One of the terrorists is seen in security camera footage near a car wash where he was employed, throwing the woman out of her car and beginning to drive erratically against oncoming traffic.
At the same time, his accomplice went on to attack people standing at a bus stop, killing 79-year old Edna Bluestein and wounding 18 others.
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Aftermath of the deadly ramming attack in Ra'anana in January
(Photo: Jack Guez / AFP)
According to the court filing, Ahmed Zidat also tried to raise money for the attack through crowdfunding but failed. He later brought his relative to work with him at the car wash, just days before the two carried out their attack. In their interrogation, they said they were responding to events at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza.