Written by Michael Bachner for TPS
An indictment was filed on Sunday against Raed Khalil bin-Mahmoud for murdering two Israelis in a deadly terror attack last month in the Panorama building in Tel Aviv.
Reuven Aviram, 51, and Aharon Yisayev, 32, were stabbed to death in the November 19 attack, and another Israeli man was wounded.
The indictment charged Mahmoud, a 36-year-old father of five from the Palestinian Authority town of Dura between Hebron and Be’er Sheva, with two accounts of murder and three accounts of attempted murder.
According to the indictment, he had an entrance permit to Israel “for personal needs.” which was valid for 30 days beginning on November 15, when he entered Israel and stayed at the Panorama building in Tel Aviv, where his brother resides.
Four days later, Mahmoud decided to murder Jews in the hope of dying in the process and being hailed by Palestinians as a “Shahid” (martyr), the indictment reads.
He took a knife from the kitchen of a restaurant on the building’s ground floor and then ascended to the second floor where he repeatedly stabbed and murdered Reuven Aviram and Aharon Yisayev, who were in the middle of afternoon prayer in a synagogue.
The terrorist then proceeded to try to murder other civilians. Mahmoud attempted to enter shops on the second floor but was prevented from doing so when the doors were held shut from the inside. He entered a shoe storeroom on the first floor and stabbed a worker in his upper body.
At this point, according to the indictment, an Israeli civilian who followed Khalil from the second floor entered the storeroom holding a metal pole. He hit the accused with the pole, trying to prevent him from continuing his stabbing spree.
Other workers joined the effort, and together they managed to take control of the terrorist and save the stabbed worker’s life, along with the lives of other potential victims.