A 59-year-old Petach Tikva factory owner was severely wounded by two Arabs who stabbed him at his plant after hours Sunday afternoon.
Avraham Caldero was reported in stable condition Monday after surgery for removal of an injured kidney. He sustained multiple stab wounds all over his body.
The assailants, identified as former employees of Caldero’s plastics products plant, were arrested after they were found hiding in a junk pile near the factory. Both are residents of Tulkarm in the West Bank, in their early 20s.
They were being questioned in connection with recent murders in the area.
According to police, Caldero was alone in the empty factory when the two men, whom he reportedly knew, approached and asked for work. He turned them down and they attacked him.
The police believe, however, that the motive was nationalistic rather than personal. Stabbings of Jews by Arabs in Israel proper, as well as in the administered territories, have become one of the most troubling aspects of the intifada lately.
A 17-year-old Palestinian girl was taken into custody Saturday after inflicting knife wounds on a border policeman in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Sunday’s incident occurred shortly before U.S. Secretary of State James Baker arrived in Jerusalem for diplomatic talks.
A Palestinian man stabbed four Jewish women to death in Jerusalem in March, a day before Baker was due on his first mission after the Persian Gulf War.
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