One of the Palestinians suspected of carrying out the stabbing attack on Shabbos at Shaar Shechem in Yerushalayim turned himself in to police early Sunday.
Police said the youth, a 16-year-old from East Jerusalem, “understood that police were on to him and decided to turn himself in to the investigators.”
Police said additional arrests were expected in the incident.
The victim, Aharon Pomanski, a 17-year-old recent immigrant from the US, was lightly wounded in the attack. He said that he and a friend were surrounded by dozens of Arab youths as they returned from the Kosel on Shabbos afternoon.
The youths were taunting them, and two of them had knives drawn, he said.
“It seemed like they wanted to kill us,” he said. “I didn’t see them come at me, and I only realized I had been stabbed when I saw blood and them running away.”
His friend managed to escape and alert nearby police officers. The wounded youth was taken to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus for treatment for stab wounds in his back.
Security forces launched a manhunt for the assailants, and hours later police announced the detention of two 15-year-old Palestinians from East Jerusalem who matched the descriptions of the attackers.
The 16-year-old who turned himself in overnight was also sought by police, as are several others said to have taken part in the attack.
Last night, the victim told reporters from his hospital bed that the attack would not deter him from his upcoming enlistment in the IDF. He hoped to join the ranks of the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, he told the Ynet news site.
“I was stabbed, but I’ll still enlist in the army and give it my all,” he said. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
The attack — the latest in a months-long wave of deadly Palestinian car-rammings, stabbings and shootings — came three days after an Israeli man was seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in the West Bank.
{Matzav.com Israel}
