UK-born IDF soldier praised after thwarting Palestinian stabbing attack

A Londoner who made aliyah is being lauded as a heroine after scuppering a Palestinian terrorist attack.

Combat soldier Leanne Haroche was patrolling in the West Bank on Tuesday when a Palestinian man came at her with a knife. She “blocked the assailant’s multiple stabbing attacks,” the IDF reported.

Haroche, 22, said that she used her physical strength to stop the attacker. “I pushed him and gave him a few hits with my gun,” she stated, adding that he went on to make more stabbing attempts, aimed at both her and her commander, after she initially repelled him.

First responders and local politicians who went to the scene suggested that were it not for Haroche’s firm action, the terrorist could have injured several people. “Miraculously, other than the attacker, there were no injuries,” said Chaim Kreif, a paramedic from the Hatzalah organization who was present soon after the attack. 

Israeli minister Omer Yankelevitch enthused on Twitter that Haroche is a national “heroine.”  Yankelevitch, whose portfolio covers Diaspora affairs, held up the story of a British woman who made aliyah and went on to stop a terror attack as epitomizing “the intensity of Diaspora Jews’ connections with the State of Israel.”