A staffer at the Israel Embassy in Beijing was stabbed on the streets with a knife, according to Chinese authorities.
Beijing police on Oct. 13 said they had arrested a 53-year-old foreign man who engages in “small commodities business” in China’s capital. They didn’t provide further details on the suspect’s nationality.
The victim, aged 50, was a diplomat’s family member and was injured in front of a supermarket in the Chaoyang district’s Zuojiazhuang neighborhood, according to the Chinese statement.
The Israeli embassy identified him as an Israeli embassy employee and said that he is in stable condition after being treated in the hospital.
Videos circulating on social media show two men wrestling against each other with a white-shirted man holding a knife repeatedly jabbing the other on the shoulder and chest area after the victim fell to the ground. Shouts can be heard in the video during the assault, and the pavement was smeared with blood. Several locals stood by and watched but no one offered help during the period. The man in white 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 said to another, pointing to the injured man in a gray shirt, adding that he believed the other man was Middle Eastern. The man’s face was half covered in blood. A small pool of red had already formed around him.
“Ambulance will be coming soon—shortly, okay?” a man was 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. Hamas militants, having launched the deadliest attack on civilians in the region in decades over the weekend, had urged Palestinians to rise up on Friday 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.
The country’s foreign ministry said its ambassador to China Rafi Harpaz expressed “deep disappointment” with the Chinese statements in his phone call with the Chinese envoy to the Middle East Zhai Jun on Thursday, according to a readout.
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 statement released on Friday said. Mr. Harpaz also took issue with Beijing’s wording, such as the “sadness” over civilian injuries and calls for “immediate ceasefire,” 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,” he said.
U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns wrote on social media that “we are shocked by today’s attack on an Israeli diplomat in Beijing.” 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 regards to your surroundings.”
While the embassy doesn’t have details on the attacker’s motivation, it noted that “a former Hamas leader has called for October 13th to be a ‘day of rage,’ sparking caution in numerous countries around the world.”
To keep safe, it recommends Americans vary the time and routes they go to work or perform errands to disrupt people who might be targeting them, keep a low profile, and beware of “impatient, possibly hostile motorcyclists, scooter riders, and cyclists” on crosswalks, scan hands and eyes of people near them on pedestrian roads, and keep colleagues and family informed about their daily activities.
Both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were in Israel to signify their support. A U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived in the region, along with scores of warplanes heading to U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
From The Epoch Times
