‘Nothing in Our Family Is Hostile to the State’: One Dead After ‘Mentally Ill’ Druze Man Carries Out Terror Attack in Haifa

Latest Developments

Suspect Yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ Before Stabbing Civilians: A terrorist killed one man and injured four others during a March 3 stabbing spree inside Haifa’s Lev Hamifratz transit hub before he was shot dead by a bus station security guard and an armed passerby. The assailant — a Druze man in his 20s identified as Jethro Shahin, who was reportedly a dual Israeli-German citizen — was witnessed yelling “Allahu Akbar” after he exited a bus and proceeded to stab multiple people on the platform. The victims included 70-year-old Hassan Karim Bahamsheh, who died at the scene from multiple stab wounds, and three others, including a woman in her 70s and a 15-year-old boy.
Druze Leaders and Family Condemn Attack: Shahin’s actions were immediately condemned by his community in the Druze town of Shfar’am, with the town’s Mayor Nahad Hazem telling Israel’s Kan public broadcaster that he completely condemned the “heinous crime.” Shahin’s uncle, Roni Haris, an IDF veteran, said that there “is nothing in our family that is hostile to the state [of Israel]” and that Shahin “had been struggling with mental illness for years.”
Continued Terrorist Attacks Inside Israel: On February 27, a 53-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank city of Jenin — who was living in Israel illegally — injured at least 13 people by ramming his car into a crowd of pedestrians at a crowded bus stop in the city of Pardes Hanna before attempting to stab a police officer with a screwdriver. A week earlier, Israel averted a potentially large-scale terrorist attack after explosives detonated on three empty buses in the Tel Aviv suburbs and two additional explosive devices were neutralized by police. Police said that the bombs were typical of those assembled in the West Bank, and some of the explosives bore messages indicating that they were placed in response to IDF anti-terror operations in the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

FDD Expert Response

“The uptick in terror attacks against Israelis began in 2022, with the vast majority of attacks emanating from eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. Although Israel’s security services foil hundreds of such attacks each year, lone wolf attacks are incredibly hard to predict or prevent, especially when the attackers are citizens of Israel that become radicalized.” — Enia Krivine, Senior Director of FDD’s Israel Program and National Security Network

“Some acts of terrorism are not always black and white. Law enforcement sometimes cannot answer questions about what compelled an attacker to commit an act of terrorism. In this case, the family of Jethro Shahin is adamant that he had a mental illness and was not motivated by terrorism. Whatever the facts may be, the result is still the same.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

“Hassan Karim Bahamsheh’s tragic murder is further proof that all Israelis — Jews and Arabs — can have their lives turned upside down by terrorism. The randomness of these attacks is supposed to demoralize Israelis, but Israelis aren’t going anywhere. The fact that the perpetrator was a mentally ill Druze person is unlikely to create fissures between Israeli Jews and Israel’s Druze community, many of whom have paid the ultimate price defending their shared country.” — David May, Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst