Saturday, January 30, 2016

30-Jan-16: Givat Ze'ev stabbing victim recovering slowly but well

We happened to be at the Givat Ze'ev shopping
complex the morning after the attack and snapped this view.  
This past Thursday, we posted here about another unprovoked Arab-on-Israeli knifing attack in Givat Ze'ev, a community located just a short distance past the Ramot neighbourhood of northern Jerusalem.

We had no information at the time about the identity of the victim. Victims of terror should never, ever be treated as statistics. So here's what we can now share about the victim of that attack.

His name is Menachem Mendel Rivkin and according to a Times of Israel report from Friday, he is a resident of Givat Ze'ev. As of yesterday, he was being treated in the intensive care unit of Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center for multiple stab wounds to the upper part of his body. Thankfully his condition has improved. He can now breathe unaided and is conscious and communicating with those around him.

Bir Nabala, the knifer's home-town
[Wikipedia]
His wife Brachi, interviewed on Israel's Channel 2 news:
“We left the car, we walked for maybe a meter. We parked right by the burger place, and suddenly my husband tells me ‘I’ve been stabbed’. I looked around and didn’t see anyone. It all happened in a few seconds... Everyone ran out to chase the terrorist, and so I stayed with [my husband], not quite sure what to do. I sensed he was losing blood and was not with me...”
The moments before and after the knifing, showing the attacker stalking the Rivkins, were captured on a security camera [here].

The stabber was chased and overpowered by civilian bystanders and then handed over to the authorities for interrogation. As we wrote on Thursday, he is a youth of 17, Abada Abu Ras, from the nearby Arab town of Bir Nabala. At Ma'an News Agency, they name him as "Obada Aziz Abu Ras, although the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said they could not confirm the young man's identity or where he was being detained." The only-too-familiar process of turning this thug into a hero deserving of emulation in Arab society is already well underway: see Alwatan Voice, Palestine News Network, PAnet and probably many more by now.

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