Netanyahu: Tel Aviv attack result of ‘poisonous incitement’ from Palestinians

The Israeli Prime Minister has condemned the Tel Aviv stabbing attack as ‘the same terrorism that attacked us in Paris’.

A Palestinian terrorist stabbed nine people on a number 40 bus in central Tel Aviv before he was chased down, shot and arrested, Israeli police said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by saying that the attacks were “the direct result of the poisonous incitement being disseminated by the Palestinian Authority against the Jews and their state.”

He continued to add that “this same terrorism is trying to attack us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere.”

The stabbing is the latest in a type of “lone wolf” attacks that have plagued Israel in recent months. About a dozen people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, including five killed with guns and meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.

Hamas, the Islamic Terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip, did not claim responsibility but praised the attack as “brave and heroic” in a tweet by Izzat Risheq, a Hamas leader residing in Qatar.

The stabbing is a “natural response to the occupation and its terrorist crimes against our people”, Mr Risheq said.

Israeli officials said the recent attacks stemmed from incitement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.

“It is Hamas – Abu Mazen’s partners in a unity government – that hastened to commend this attack. This is the same Hamas that announced it will sue Israel at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Abu Mazen is responsible for both the incitement and the dangerous move at the ICC in the Hague”, said Mr. Netanyahu.