Knives are handy tools. They can cut meat. They can be used to push food onto your fork. On this day in 2015, a series of stabbings in Israel shocked that nation.
Knives are handy tools. They can cut meat. They can be used to push food onto your fork. They can even serve as a screwdriver in a pinch.
They can also be used in terrorist attacks.
We are seeing an increase, I think, in knife attacks around the world (including in Canada as a recent trial in Edmonton is showing). Knives are ubiquitous and easy to conceal. Terrorist groups like Islamic State encourage followers to use these weapons for all these reasons. Their deployment does not take special training.
And yet even if the attacks in which they feature do not seem as spectacular as car bombs, suicide bombers or AK-47s, they can still strike fear in citizens. On this day in 2015 a series of stabbings in Israel shocked that nation.
Among the attacks were:
- Two were wounded in Jerusalem stabbing attack;
- A terrorist stabbed and lightly wounded five people at the intersection of Menahem Begin Boulevard and Moses Street in Tel Aviv;
- A Jewish man was stabbed in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba;
- Two people were stabbed in Afula.
For the record, three more stabbings occurred the next day.
In the end, none of the victims died and the assailant in the October 8 East Jerusalem attack was killed by an Israeli Defence Forces soldier. Relatively speaking, Israel got off easy that day.
Knives are the weapon of the poor – or incompetent – terrorist. Expect more attacks to happen.
