An elderly woman is dead, and at least 17 people, including several school children, are wounded after a pair of Palestinian terrorists went on a rampage Monday in central Israel.
Two Palestinians illegally in Ra'anana, an Israeli city north of Tel Aviv, launched the attack around 1:30 p.m. just as schools were letting out. The terrorists violently hijacked three vehicles over the course of their rampage, in one instance slicing up a female driver.
With the stolen vehicles, the Palestinians launched multiple attacks across Ra'anana, running over several children and killing 79-year-old Edna Bluestein, reported the Jerusalem Post.
A witness told Haaretz that she saw "someone stab people near the mall. [The attacker] stole a car and ran over other people."
"Another person was with me, noticed the situation and shouted 'an attack, an attack'. After that, I saw the terrorist. I saw him stabbing a man around 60 years old. The man fell and the terrorist ran away," said witness Eden Alfi.
After repeatedly swapping hijacked vehicles, Mahmoud Zidat, 44, and Ahmed Zidat, 24, of Bani Na'im ultimately crashed and were arrested by police. Mahmoud Zidat reportedly worked illegally at a car wash in the city and has been living in Ra'anana with Ahmed, his cousin.
Following the terrorists' capture, Israeli police indicated central district police officers were sweeping "the attack scenes and its surroundings to ensure no further threats."
Central District Police Chief Avi Biton said, "This was a very grave terror attack," reported the Daily Mail.
"They went out together and in parallel, to two different locations, took two cars and launched a series of rammings," added Biton.
One of the attackers allegedly told the Shin Bet that "when the war in Gaza started," they "decided to carry out an attack and become martyrs... Initially, we intended to stab Jews, but then we decided to run over as many Jews as possible," reported the Times of Israel.
The Magen David Adom emergency services initially indicated that two males, ages 34 and 16, were in "serious condition with head and limb injuries"; another eight victims were in moderate condition; and three were in mild condition. However, Haaretz later revealed that three individuals, including a 16-year-old boy, were in serious condition and that 14 victims, including six children, were left in light to moderate condition.
The victims were taken to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Fourteen of the victims remained hospitalized as of Monday evening.
The Post reported that Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Hamas called the terror attacks "a natural response to the massacres of the Nazi occupation and its continued aggression against our Palestinian people."
The terror group also implored "revolutionary youth throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem" to "escalate the struggle and revolution" until Palestine is established where Israel once stood.
Footage taken by a passerby shows one of the badly damaged vehicles, ostensibly used by the terrorists, on the sidewalk near a motionless body.
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U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said in a statement, "I condemn the brutal terrorist attacks today in Ra'anana that led to at least one dead and scores wounded, including children. I offer my deepest condolences to the family mourning the loss of their loved one and wishing a quick recovery to those wounded."
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Israeli officials are investigating allegations that some traders made substantial stock market profits on the basis of advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
Authorities acknowledged a probe was under way following the Dec. 3 release of a damning report titled, "Trading in Terror?" wherein two university law professors indicated that "days before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange increased dramatically."
In their 66-page report, SEC commissioner Robert Jackson Jr., a professor at New York University, and Columbia University professor Joshua Mitts noted that much attention has been paid to how Hamas may have financed the attacks, but "little attention has been given to trading in securities markets in advance of October 7—an important omission given the relative sizes of the cryptocurrency and securities markets."
Five days prior to the slaughter of at least 1,200 people by Hamas terrorists, "nearly 100% of the off-exchange trading volume in the MSCI Israel ETF ... consisted of short selling."
The researchers highlighted how short selling in early October greatly exceeded the short selling that occurred during other times of crisis, such as the financial crisis, the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, and the COVID-19 pandemic. They also ruled out seasonality and random chance.
Short selling entails borrowing a security, selling it on the open market, then buying it back later for significantly less money. Short sellers profit from a drop in a security's price.
"Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come: on October 2, short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) suddenly, and significantly, spiked," said the report. "And just before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange increased dramatically."
"For one Israeli company alone, 4.43 million new shares sold short over the September 14 to October 5 period yielded profits (or approximates avoided losses) of 3.2 billion NIS [$862 million] on that additional short selling," said the report.
Jackson and Mitts observed suspicious patterns going back to at least April, when Hamas was reportedly beginning to plan its attacks.
The duo determined that "traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events" by short selling on the U.S. and Israeli stock exchanges. While the researchers could not ascertain who the traders were, Israeli authorities appear keen to find out.
The Israel Securities Authority told Reuters, "The matter is known to the authority and is under investigation by all the relevant parties."
Reuters indicated a spokesman for the securities regulator would not elaborate and that Israeli police did not provide comment.
Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School, told CNN that "regulators appear to lack the ability to discover the entities responsible for this trading, which is unfortunate."
Mitts indicated that neither he nor his co-author Jackson are suggesting Hamas necessarily had been making the trades. Rather multiple actors, individual, corporate, governmental and/or terroristic may have acted upon advance insights into Hamas' plans.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told CNN it "does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation." A spokesman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said the same for his regulator.
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'All they wanted to do at that moment of publishing these videos was to make us afraid and confused and terrified. And they actually succeeded.'
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