Mayor of Jerusalem confronts stabbing suspect near City Hall

Nir Barkat.
(Image credit: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

On Sunday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat tackled a Palestinian teenager who allegedly stabbed an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man near City Hall.

The altercation was caught on surveillance camera, with the footage showing a man "waving his arm in a stabbing motion and making contact with one individual and attempting to stab others as they waited to cross the road," Reuters reports. Then, the mayor and his security guard appeared, and Barkat lunged at the man and pinned him down before he was detained by other witnesses.

The victim was taken to the hospital and is not seriously injured, and police say the suspect is an 18-year-old Palestinian. Barkat called him a "terrorist" and said he only dropped his knife after the bodyguard took out his own weapon and aimed it in his direction.

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.