A 20-year-old Arab man on his way to carry out a terrorist attack suddenly had second thoughts about his “mission” Tuesday afternoon after seeing the number of soldiers gathered in the fields along the way.
The sight prompted him to rethink the idea, and upon his arrival the first thing he did upon his arrival at the Taysir roadblock near Jenin was to put his hands up in the air as he reached the observation post (also known in Hebrew slang as a ‘pillbox’), shouting his surrender.
The local IDF commander and his soldiers immediately cuffed him and began a body search, and a search for his belongings.
Under questioning the “would be terrorist” revealed he had traveled to the site from the Palestinian Authority community of Par’a, intending to stab IDF soldiers at the checkpoint. But on the way to the site, he became anxious about the large number of soldiers he saw along the way, and decided that he wouldn’t carry out the attack.
Towards that end, he had tossed his bag, which contained a knife and a gas canister — both of which were to be used in his attack.
The “terrorist” was taken into custody and held, unharmed, for further investigation.