JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed and injured an Israeli Arab man in central Israel on Monday, in an "apparent terror attack," the police said.
The incident took place near a shop in Petah Tikva, a city in central Israel, north of Tel Aviv.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the assailant stabbed a bus driver in his neck and fled the scene by foot. He was caught and handed to the police by passersbys, Samri said.
The assailant was identified as a 21-year-old resident of the West Bank city of Qalqilya who entered Israel without permits. The victim, a 32-year-old Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel, was sent to a hospital in a moderate-to-serious condition, the emergency medical service said.
Egged, Israel's main transportation company for which the driver is working, said that he was on his lunch break and the stabber had mistaken him to be a Jew.
Samri said that "the initial investigation suggests that the motive was nationalistic." According to media reports, the suspect told his investigators that he carried out the attack "for Al-Aqsa."
The flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound has been at the center of increasing violence after Israel installed metal detectors at the compound's entry following a shooting attack that killed three Israeli policemen.
The Palestinians and some Muslim countries see the new security measures as a violation of the long-held status quo at the site, under which the Jordanian Muslim Waqf holds the administrative authority.
On Friday night, a Palestinian stabbed and killed three members of an Israeli family in a West Bank settlement, also saying his act was made for the sake of Al-Aqsa.
