2022 Beersheba Attack

The attacker was identified as Muhammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, also rendered Mohammad Abu al-Qian. He was a resident of Hura in the Negev and a former teacher; reports gave his age at the time as either 34 or 35.[1][6] In 2015, he admitted supporting Islamic State and taking part in gatherings of its supporters in Hura. He was also reported to have helped establish a secret group and to have planned to travel to Syria to join the organization, using a pilgrimage as a pretext.[4][5]

A court sentenced Abu al-Qi’an to four years in prison in January 2016 after he pleaded guilty under a plea agreement. N12 later reported that he had been released about a year and a half before the attack.[4][5] The U.S. State Department reported that Israeli authorities considered the attack ISIS-inspired, while other reporting distinguished ideological inspiration from evidence that the group’s leadership directed the attack.[6][8]

The attack took place during a wider period of deadly violence in Israel in 2022. The State Department reported that terrorist attacks killed 32 Israelis and foreigners that year, and that after 21 Israelis were killed in attacks from March to May, the IDF launched Operation Break the Wave, including near-daily raids in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — through the rest of the year.[6] An analysis of that period grouped Beersheba with attacks in Hadera and Bnei Brak, arguing that attacks in large cities within pre-1967 Israel unsettled public expectations about safety; this was the author’s assessment, not an independently established finding.[9]

The attack began on March 22, 2022, at about 4:10 p.m. in the Hebron Road area near the BIG shopping center. Abu al-Qi’an used a knife and a vehicle, attacking people at a gas station and nearby commercial locations and striking a cyclist.[1][10] Four people—two women and two men—were killed, and two women were wounded and taken for medical care.[1][2]

The victims were Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, Laura Yitzhak, Doris Yahbas—also spelled Yehbas—and Menahem Yehezkel, whose name was also reported as Menachem Yehezkel Manuhin.[11][12] Kravitzky was a Chabad community member who managed a synagogue and soup kitchen in Beersheba and was killed while cycling. Yitzhak, a mother of three, was killed at a gas station; Yahbas, also a mother of three and a resident of Moshav Gilat, was killed in a clothing store; and Yehezkel was killed in a square. Yahbas was 49, Yitzhak 43, Kravitzky 50, and Yehezkel 67.[12]

Reports give different sequences for the individual attacks. N12’s account of the police timeline says Abu al-Qi’an first stabbed a woman at the gas station, then drove to a shopping center, struck the cyclist, and went to another shopping center across the street, where he stabbed additional people.[1] A Jerusalem Post follow-up account says he struck Kravitzky first, then stabbed Yitzhak at a gas station before killing Yahbas and Yehezkel at nearby locations.[13] The accounts agree on the four fatalities but do not establish a single uncontested sequence.[1][13]

The attacker was confronted and shot by armed civilians. The State Department describes an armed bus driver as shooting him; Ynet identifies bus driver Arthur Chaimov and a second armed civilian as the men who fired after Abu al-Qi’an lunged at Chaimov.[6][3] Ynet accounts differ over which man fired the fatal rounds.[10][3] The Southern District police commander said officers arrived about four minutes after the first report. Estimates of the attack’s duration include eight minutes, five minutes, and two to three minutes.[1][3]

Police said they had no prior warning and initially believed Abu al-Qi’an had acted alone, while investigating whether anyone else had helped him.[14][3] Authorities raised alert levels and reinforced security amid concern about copycat attacks. Beersheba’s mayor announced plans to increase security in the city, including near educational institutions.[14][3] Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised the civilians who shot the attacker, saying their courage and resourcefulness had prevented further casualties, and convened the Ministerial Committee to Fight Crime and Violence in Arab Society.[13]

The four victims were buried on March 23. Yahbas’s funeral took place at the cemetery in Moshav Gilat and Yehezkel’s at the new Beersheba cemetery; Kravitzky had served the Nahal Beka neighborhood and run a local soup kitchen for ten years.[13] At Yahbas’s funeral, Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev mistakenly said the attacker would be imprisoned and tried, although he had been killed at the scene. After attendees corrected him, Yahbas’s brother-in-law criticized Bar-Lev for not explicitly saying she had been murdered because she was Jewish; Bar-Lev replied, “You’re right.”[15]

In an assessment published on March 24, two days after the attack, INSS researcher Meir Elran described the period before Ramadan as sensitive and recommended a concerted effort by police and security forces to prevent renewed violence. He reported that Arab public and leadership responses included condemnation and a desire to preserve Jewish-Arab integration and cooperation, particularly in the Negev.[11] Ra’am’s statement, reproduced in a later article, condemned the attack, expressed condolences to the victims’ families, wished the wounded recovery, and called for preserving “the common and delicate fabric of life” and promoting tolerant discourse.[16]

A U.S. State Department report also noted Israeli media accounts of settler actions after the attack: damage to car windows and stone-throwing at homes in Mukhmas, followed the next day by reports of tires slashed on Palestinian residents’ cars in Sheikh Jarrah. The report records those accounts as occurring after the attack but does not establish that the attack caused them.[17]

The attack’s relationship to Islamic State is described with differing degrees of certainty. INSS characterized it as the work of a lone terrorist with a vehicle and knife, apparently acting without assistance or prior warning, and connected the ISIS-related description to Abu al-Qi’an’s background and prior association with the group.[7] The State Department reported that Israeli authorities considered him inspired by ISIS.[6] Other reporting cautioned that prior support or ideological inspiration did not establish that the organization’s leadership ordered the attack.[8][18]

Sources also differ on the status of the group’s post-attack statements. One account says Islamic State’s March 27 claim concerning the Hadera attack mentioned Beersheba and that its A’maq agency referred to Abu al-Qi’an, while explicitly stating that no separate formal claim of responsibility for Beersheba was issued.[19] INSS characterizes Islamic State as having taken credit for both attacks after Hadera, so the wording and status of the group’s claim remain disputed in the available accounts.[7]

Contemporary coverage described the attack as the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel in five years.[2] It also became part of assessments of the 2022 terror wave. One commentary argued that the attacks challenged assumptions that locations outside Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem were relatively safe, and that they surprised the government, security organizations, and public despite expectations of increased violence around Ramadan.[9]

Responses in Hura were reported to include broad condemnation and special sessions in local schools intended to reinforce the attack’s unacceptability. A commentary contrasted those local responses with positive reactions to the attack among terror groups on social media, interpreting the difference as a possible divide between the attacker’s real-world and online environments.[20] Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokespeople praised the attack.[14]

Reports differ on the sequence and duration of the attack.[1][2] They also give Abu al-Qi’an’s age as either 34 or 35.[1][6] Ynet accounts vary over which civilian fired the fatal rounds.[10][3] These differences do not change the broadly corroborated account that four people were killed and two women wounded before armed civilians stopped the attacker.[1][2]

Reporting on the Islamic State connection also varies. The Meir Amit account distinguishes references to Beersheba in ISIS statements about Hadera from a separate formal claim, which it says was not issued; INSS says ISIS took credit for both attacks after Hadera.[19][7] Both INSS and Ynet nevertheless indicate that the available evidence did not establish direction by ISIS leadership.[7][8]