The incident occurred Thursday, December 8th, when Ali Hamad, a 31-year-old Palestinian Authority resident from the town of Silwad near Ramallah who was illegally residing in pre-1967 Israel, rammed his vehicle into a motorcyclist, injuring him.
Hamad was arrested after the collision, and the Shin Bet internal security agency launched a probe into whether the incident was a terrorist attack.
In a conversation with Channel 12 News from the hospital, the injured man said, “I knew from the beginning. The man saw me outside the synagogue, I was wearing tzizit and talking to a friend. He sped into the synagogue, continued with my motorcycle for another 40 meters – he didn’t blow the horn or anything.”
During questioning, Hamad confessed to Shin Bet interrogators that the incident had been intentional, and that he had carried out the attack on nationalistic grounds.
Hamad said that he carried out the attack to avenge the death of his cousin, a terrorist who was killed during a gun battle with IDF forces a day before the ramming attack.
