The IDF launched a manhunt for a terrorist after he attempted to stab a young Israeli man at the Yitzhar Junction in Samaria, on Wednesday. The IDF stated that it received a report from an Israeli civilian who said that a terrorist tried to stab him at the Yitzhar Junction as he was waiting for a ride.
The young man, a yeshiva student in Yitzhar, fought with the terrorist with just his kipa in his hands (and a good kick) before he managed to escape the armed attacker. The terrorist fled toward the nearby Arab town of Hawara.
The young man was not injured.
Chairman of the Samaria Regional Council Yossi Dagan, who arrived at the scene, praised the citizen who fought the terrorist “with his bare hands.”
He called on the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, and “all government ministers to come to their senses and learn from this resident, the ordinary citizen, how to fight terrorism with his bare hands.”
“The government of Israel, with all its great forces, the strongest security system in the Middle East, must restore deterrence, the reason that time and time again they [terrorists] try to hit Samaria and elsewhere in the State of Israel is that the government is losing deterrence. I call on the government to learn from the heroic act of the resident who fought with his bare hands against a terrorist with a knife and prevented a larger attack.“
The report is very reminiscent of the 2016 terror attack in the town of Efrat, when a civilian, Rafi Lipsker, was stabbed in the back by a terrorist, and despite his wounds heroically managed to fight off the terrorist bare-handed, until the terrorist ran away.
JewishPress.com News Desk contributed to this report.