Israeli authorities on Sunday filed preliminary charges against a resident of eastern Jerusalem in connection with the Dec. 19 stabbing of an elderly Israeli woman in the capital’s downtown area. The suspect acted with a terrorist motive when he attacked the victim in her home, according to the indictment.
Around noon on Dec. 19, the Magen David Adom emergency medical service received a report about a woman in her 70s who had been found wounded inside a home on Koresh Street near City Hall.
Medics provided first aid and evacuated the woman to Shaare Zedek Medical Center with serious wounds. Her situation has since improved, but she remains hospitalized in moderate condition.
The suspect, Nabil Shabani, 60, was employed as a cleaner and handyman in the apartment complex when the attack occurred, the Israel Police and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said on Sunday.
“I wanted to murder her,” Shabani is said to have told security forces, claiming he attacked the woman due to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
According to authorities, Shabani visited the victim’s home to carry out repairs the evening before the assault. After he told her that he needed to buy screws to fix the problem, the victim gave him 100 shekels ($27), and he told her he would return the following day.
The next morning, Shabani allegedly strangled her until he believed she was dead. Footage made public on Sunday showed him fleeing the scene but returning after realizing he had left his walking stick there.
Upon returning to the apartment, he allegedly realized the victim was still alive and decided to stab her multiple times with a kitchen knife, as well as steal her jewelry.
Shabani subsequently fled to Judea and Samaria after selling the jewelry at a shop in eastern Jerusalem, according to the charges. Investigators were able to recover the jewelry and return it to the victim’s family.
On Dec. 27, a Palestinian terrorist from Tulkarem in Samaria stabbed and mortally wounded an 83-year-old Israeli woman near the nursing home where she lived on Kedoshei Hashoah Street in Herzliya.
The terrorist, named as 28-year-old Ibrahim Shalhob, had a valid Israeli residency permit as he had previously worked as a Shin Bet informant.
The Shin Bet said the suspect was “involved in thwarting terror infrastructures in Judea and Samaria, was exposed and transferred for rehabilitation in Israel.”
The suspect was arrested at the scene “and will be transferred for Shin Bet interrogation to continue investigating the circumstances of the attack,” the statement added.