Israel identifies British tourist killed in Jerusalem knife attack

Israeli officals inspect the site of the attack near East Jerusalem' Old City, on April 14, 2017. A British student was killed and two Israelis were injured in a "terror" attack carried out by a knife-wielding Palestinian in Jerusalem's light rail on Friday noon, Israeli officials said. (Xinhua/Guo Yu)

JERUSALEM, April 14 -- Israeli authorities named the British victim of a knife attack in Jerusalem on Friday as Hanna Bladon, a 21-year-old student.

At noon Friday, Bladon was stabbed on light rail by a Palestinian passenger, who was described by the police as a "mentally disturbed man," before dying of her wounds about an hour later in a hospital.

Bladon, a student of Birmingham University in England, commenced her studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in January 2017 in a student exchange program. She was expected to complete the program in September.

The Hebrew University offered its condolences to Bladon's family, saying in an official statement that "the university condemns such acts of terror and murder that hurt innocents who have come to Jerusalem to enrich their knowledge."

According to police spokeswoman Luba Samri, an initial investigation indicated the assailant as a passenger on the light rail. When the rail reached the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Square stop near East Jerusalem, he pulled out a knife from a shopping bag and stabbed Bladon.

The police first said the assailant was shot, but a later statement said an off-duty policeman on the rail witnessed the incident and arrested the stabber without shooting.

The suspect has been taken into custody, Samri said.

According to Samri, the attacker, who holds an Israeli ID, was released from a psychiatric hospital in northern Israel shortly before the incident. He was on his way home in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in East Jerusalem.

However, a statement released by Israel Security Agency Shin Bet called the suspect a "terrorist," saying he might have carried out the attack in an attempt to get killed by the police.

"He recently tried to commit suicide, in a hospital in northern Israel, by swallowing a razor blade," the statement read.

"In 2011, he was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter," it added.

A man and a pregnant woman, who apparently sustained light injuries when the rail went into an emergency brake, also needed hospital care, according to a spokesman for the MDA, an Israeli emergency medical service company.

The rail service in the city was temporarily halted, said a statement by Citipass, the company that operates the rail.

The attack came amid the Jewish holiday of Passover.

The police in the city have been on high alert as tens of thousands of Jews arrive for prayers in the Western Wall inside East Jerusalem's Old City, and some even go to visit the flashpoint al-Aqsa compound, a hilltop site above the Western Wall regarded as sacred by both Muslims and Jews.

It is not the first time that a Palestinian suffering from personal, mental or moral distress has chosen to commit a terrorist attack in order to escape their problems, according to Shin Bet.

The incident also came amid a spate of violence that broke out in September 2015.

Since the beginning of the unrest, Palestinians have killed 41 Israelis and two U.S. nationals, while Israeli forces and civilians killed at least 241 Palestinians, a Jordanian and two African asylum seekers, most of them alleged attackers, according to Israel.

Israel accuses the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the unrest. The Palestinians say it is the result of 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to more than 5 million Palestinians.