Attack — Beer-Sheva

An attacker assaults passers-by in Beer-Sheva, the capital of the Negev: he runs over a cyclist with a car, then pursues people with a knife in front of a petrol station and a shopping centre before being shot dead by an armed civilian.

The perpetrator, a Bedouin teacher from the region, had previously been convicted for membership in a jihadist organisation. The attack opens a series of assaults striking Israeli cities during the month of Ramadan, in Bnei Brak, Tel-Aviv and Elad, which stands apart from previous waves by the absence of a single mastermind. Beer-Sheva, a city of immigration where Jewish and Bedouin populations coexist, emerges from it deeply divided.