Beijing police arrested a suspect on Oct. 13 in the stabbing of an Israeli Embassy staffer, according to Chinese authorities.
The 53-year-old foreign man, who is suspected of stabbing the male embassy worker on the streets of Beijing, engages in “small commodities business” in China’s capital, authorities said. They didn’t provide further details on the suspect’s nationality.
The 50-year-old victim was injured in front of a supermarket in the Zuojiazhuang neighborhood of the city’s Chaoyang district.
The Israeli Embassy said the victim was in stable condition after being treated in the hospital.
Videos circulating on social media show two men wrestling, with a white-shirted man using a knife to repeatedly jab the victim in the shoulder and chest after he fell to the ground. Several locals stood by and watched, with none offering help during the incident. The man in the white shirt limped away afterward, taking a backpack with him.
In a longer clip apparently taken after the attack, locals tried to explain what happened while crowding behind a policeman in uniform.
“He’s from the Israel Embassy,” one man says to another, pointing to the injured man, adding that he believes the assailant was Middle Eastern. The stabbing victim is seen lying on the ground, his face half-covered in blood.
“Ambulance will be coming soon—shortly, OK?” a man can be heard saying in the background.
The stabbing happened on the seventh day of the Israel–Hamas war that has claimed some 2,800 lives on both sides of the border, coinciding with the day when Muslims hold large weekly prayers. The Hamas terrorist group, having launched the deadliest attack on civilians in the region in decades on Oct. 7, had urged Palestinians to rise up on Oct. 13 to “demonstrate, mobilize, and clash” with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
Israel has sharply criticized Beijing for its ambiguous stance on the Gaza violence.
There was “no clear and unequivocal condemnation of the terrible massacre committed by the terrorist organization Hamas against innocent civilians and the abduction of dozens of them to Gaza,” the Israeli statement read.
Mr. Harpaz also took issue with Beijing’s wording, such as its “sadness” over civilian injuries and calls for an “immediate ceasefire,” which, he said, are “not appropriate” in light of the “tragic events and atrocities of the last few days.”
“The Chinese announcements do not contain any element of Israel’s right to defend itself and its citizens, a fundamental right of any sovereign country that was attacked in an unprecedented manner and with cruelty that has no place in human society,” Mr. Harpaz said.
“We are shocked by today’s attack on an Israeli diplomat in Beijing,” U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns wrote on social media. He said that he has spoken with Israeli officials and “offered our full support to the Israeli Embassy and Israeli community in China.”
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has issued an alert warning Americans in China to “maintain vigilance with regard to your surroundings.”
Although the embassy didn’t have details on the attacker’s motivation, it noted that “a former Hamas leader has called for Oct. 13 to be a ‘day of rage,’ sparking caution in numerous countries around the world.”
For their safety, the embassy recommends that Americans keep a low profile; vary the times and routes they use to go to work or perform errands; be cautious of “impatient, possibly hostile, motorcyclists, scooter riders, and cyclists” on crosswalks; scan the hands and eyes of people near them on pedestrian roads; and keep colleagues and family members informed about their daily whereabouts.
Both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Israel to signify their support. A U.S. aircraft carrier has been ordered to the region, along with scores of warplanes heading to U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
