Hisouri Tepalya describes staggering across the street after she was stabbed in the back by a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem
Hisouri Tepalya, a Nepalese woman who was injured in a terror attack in Jerusalem on Sunday morning, recalled not being able to find help immediately after being stabbed by a Palestinian teenager at a bus stop.
Tepalya told reporters from her hospital bed in Shaare Zedek Hospital Sunday afternoon that Shamgar Street was relatively empty at the time of the attack. “I couldn’t find anyone to help me, so I had to cross the street where there was a bus,” she said.
Bleeding heavily, Tepalya was eventually helped by the bus’s driver, who called police and paramedics to the scene. “He helped me, put a towel on my wound and called an ambulance,” Tepalya said before thanking the driver for his help.
“I sat on the bus and lost a lot of blood,” Tepalya said.
“Someone came up from behind me and stabbed me in the back. I was scared; I saw blood all over my hand,” Tepalya recounted, and said it took her several minutes to realize she was the victim of a terror attack.
“But I understood that it was a terror attack because I have been listening to the news lately,” she said, and added, “I was scared recently because of what has been going on.”
Tepalya, a caregiver who is celebrating her 31st birthday on Monday, said that despite the ordeal, she plans to stay in Israel.
According to police, a 17-year-old Hebron resident approached Tepalya from behind as she waited at the bus stop, stabbed her in her upper back and fled, triggering a manhunt in nearby buildings and streets.
Shortly after 11 a.m., police said they located the Palestinian teenager hiding in a construction site nearby. Police said he admitted he had carried out the attack. He also matched descriptions provided by eyewitnesses to the attack.
The suspect was handed over to the special investigations unit of the Jerusalem Police for questioning. Two other suspected accomplices were arrested by police nearby.
Earlier Sunday morning, a Border Police officer was lightly to moderately wounded in a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate leading to Jerusalem’s Old City. The officer, in his early 20s, was stabbed in the neck. Magen David Adom medics evacuated him to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem.
The stabber was identified as a 38-year-old Palestinian resident of Nablus in the northern West Bank. He shouted “Allahu akbar” as he stabbed the policeman, officers said, and was then shot and killed by officers at the scene. A body search found an additional knife in the assailant’s clothing.
As reported by The Times of Israel