The 22-year-old terrorist who attacked the No. 4 Dan bus filled with commuters early Wednesday says he wanted to “reach paradise.”
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich told journalists Wednesday that Hamza Muhammad Hassan Matrouk of Tulkarm was a “terrorist in Israel without a work visa.”
Matrouk was named as the stabber who boarded the bus on Begin Road in Tel Aviv near the Beit Maariv Bridge. He stabbed the driver and continued with passengers, wounding 17 people, including four who were critically injured, three seriously wounded and six with lighter wounds. The others were treated for severe trauma and shock.
The 22-year-old terrorist was shot in the leg by one of two soldiers from the Israel Prison Service Nachshon Unit who was in the area at the time. Matrouk later confessed under questioning that he decided to carry out the attack after watching radical Islamist material that spoke of martyrs “reaching paradise” through jihad.
He added that he attacked the driver and passengers in response to events at the Temple Mount, and the counter terror Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.
It was the bravery of bus driver Herzl Biton – himself stabbed twice in the chest – who struggled with the attacker, and two Prison Service guards on the bus who then chased him, that slowed the terrorist down.
Biton struggled with Matrouk as he wielded the knife, aiming first at the 55-year-old driver, a 23-year veteran in the bus company and a father of three. Still conscious after the attack, Biton made a call to a friend to tell him, “A terrorist attacked me; I feel like I’m dying. Please look after my kids for me.”
The two soldiers from the IPS Nachson Unit ran after Matrouk as he attempted to escape the bus as it stood still at a green light. They were quickly joined by other IPS Nachson unit soldiers. Four fighters jumped out of their car to join the chase, then “fired at his feet and he collapsed.”