4 killed, 2 seriously hurt in stabbing attack at Beersheba mall; terrorist shot dead

Four people were killed and several others were wounded Tuesday in a ramming and stabbing attack at an outdoor shopping mall in Beersheba, officials said, in Israel’s deadliest terror attack in years.

According to police, the assailant first stabbed a woman to death at a gas station in the southern city. He then entered his car and rammed a cyclist, before getting out again and stabbing several people at the BIG shopping center.

Video from the scene then showed the terrorist confronted by an armed bus driver, who attempted to get him to lower his weapon. But the attacker lunged at him and was then shot several times, by the bus driver and by a second armed civilian.

The cyclist and two of the stabbing victims at the mall later died of their wounds.

The stabber was identified as 34-year-old Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, a former terror convict from the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev.

According to the Zaka emergency service, Abu al-Qi’an died of his wounds.

The Shin Bet said it was investigating the attack.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said a woman in her forties who had been stabbed by the assailant was declared dead at the scene. Five others were taken to the nearby Soroka Medical Center. Three of them died of their wounds shortly after admission, the hospital said.

The other two were listed in serious but stable condition at the hospital.

Tuesday’s rampage was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since June 2016, when two terrorists opened fire at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market, killing four people and wounding 16.

The Hamas terror group praised the stabbing attack, saying it “salutes the executor of the heroic operation in occupied Beersheba.”

“The occupation’s crimes shall be met with heroic operations: stabbings, rammings and shootings,” Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou told official Hamas radio.

The terror group did not claim the stabber as a member.

The attack comes amid a string of attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

On Sunday, two officers were hurt in a suspected stabbing attack in East Jerusalem’s Ras al-Amud neighborhood, and on Saturday, an Israeli man was stabbed and lightly hurt when he was out jogging on Jerusalem’s Hebron Road.

Earlier this month there were several attacks in Jerusalem’s Old City, and in a nearby West Bank town.

Officials have warned of a possible flare-up of violence during Ramadan next month.

Tensions have risen after nine Palestinians were killed in violent confrontations with Israeli troops in recent weeks, including in gun battles with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank during raids, as well as during attempted attacks.