‘Global day of Jihad’ begins with reported stabbings, heated confrontations with police

X (formerly known as Twitter)

On Friday, a diplomat’s family member — who also works as an employee at Israel’s embassy — was stabbed outside a Beijing supermarket by a 53-year-old male involved in the “small goods business.” 

The Israeli embassy confirmed the attack had occurred but not in the embassy area.

“The employee is being treated in hospital and his condition is stable. The background of the attack is being investigated,” they said in a statement.

Video footage circulating X shows the victim being stabbed multiple times in the upper torso. The video also shows him falling to the ground with blood smearing the pavement where the incident occurred.

The assailant, a tall, thin man in a white top armed with a knife, left the scene and headed west, according to witnesses present at the time of the attack.

Local law enforcement inspected the crime scene, took photographs and approached the surrounding shops for CCTV footage before leaving an hour later, reported the South China Morning Post.

🚨 #BREAKING: Israeli diplomat stabbed in China

More to follow

— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) October 13, 2023

Also on Friday, a Russian national of Chechen origin — under surveillance for suspected radicalization — fatally slit the throat of a teacher and critically wounded two other people at Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras, France. 

Dominique Bernard, a French language teacher at the school, was identified by a colleague as the victim of the brazen attack.

The police officer first on the scene said the suspected attacker, a former student at the school, shouted “Allahu Akbar” following the attack.

“Colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn’t save the victim,” said an officer, who confirmed the victim had his throat slit. 

“I’m extremely shocked by what I saw. It was a horrible thing to see this poor man who was killed on the job by a lunatic.”

A second teacher and a security guard remain in critical condition.

https://twitter.com/adellenaz/status/1712778968540033258

President Emmanuel Macron visited the school hours after the attack, telling reporters that Bernard “stepped in and probably saved many lives” while providing no further details at the time of writing.

The attack comes after French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin banned all demonstrations sympathetic to Hamas amid a rise in antisemitic acts since Hamas militants invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,300 Israelis and counting. 

Fortunately, local law enforcement apprehended their suspect in Arras soon after the attack.

French intelligence services told The Associated Press they had closely watched him over the summer, who provided them with no inclinations of an imminent attack.

Prosecutors conveyed that charges of terror-related murder and attempted murder against the suspect are on the table but have not been formally filed yet.

France is home to the world’s third-largest Jewish diaspora after Israel and the U.S., including the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

🚨 #BREAKING: Protesters in Jordan are marching toward Israel as part of Hamas’ international “day of rage”.

Local authorities say they won’t allow them near the border.

MORE: https://t.co/raxd1KkxQK pic.twitter.com/lBShfmXxzR

— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) October 13, 2023

Across the Mediterranean, Jordanian riot police forcibly dispersed hundreds of supposed Hamas sympathizers attempting to breach the country’s border with Israel along the West Bank.

Law enforcement tear gassed roughly 500 alleged sympathizers of Hamas, and successfully deterred them from reaching a major border crossing into Israel.

Jordan, home to a large diaspora of Palestinians, lost control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war that killed nearly 20,000 Arabs and Israelis.

In the coming days, the Israel-Hamas war is expected to include a ground assault into northern Gaza as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) try to wipe out the Hamas militant group in its stronghold.

According to Israel’s Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, the country will cease all internet services into the Gaza Strip starting Saturday, October, 14, adding to its blockade of electricity and food into the region.

Thousands of Jordanians held anti-Israel demonstrations across the country Friday in contravention of a ban on anti-Israel protests along the Jordan river valley, as reported by Reuters.

Supporters of Hamas in the cities of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa chanted slogans in support of the militant group Friday while demanding the Kingdom of Jordan close the Israeli embassy and scrap its 1994 peace treaty with the Jewish state.