An Israeli terror victim faced off against her Palestinian assailant in court on Sunday in a case that illustrates the swirl of political and personal motives that can drive such attacks.
Malik Bassem Ismail Saada, 20, from the town of Halhul next to Hebron, was working illegally as a baker in Lod, a mixed Jewish-Arab town south of Tel Aviv, when he ambushed Revital Kenino, a 45-year-old school principal, outside her home on March 27, 2017, stabbing and moderately wounding her before fleeing.
Saada confessed to the attack and said he had "purified himself" in advance at a mosque and targeted Danino because she was wearing religious Jewish garb.
The attack "was definitely nationalistic in nature," said Saada's lawyer, Alaa Tellawi, reiterating what he described as his client's position from the outset.
Testifying at the opening of Saada's trial, Kenino raised another possible factor in the attack: alcohol.
"When he was close to me, he had a smell of alcohol, but his behavior was very decisive," she told the three judges, as Saada sat slumped in the dock, watching impassively.
Officials on both sides have said the wave of Palestinian street attacks that began in 2015 stemmed from a volatile combination of political tensions in the conflict with Israel and personal problems suffered by some of the assailants.
"He had murder in his eyes," Kenino said, short of breath, her face flushed.
"I curled up by instinct and felt his knife slipping from my neck and further down, to where I was stabbed. I elbowed him and apparently it was then that he dropped the knife and ran away."
She held up a sweater, perforated between the shoulders, that she said she had been wearing on the evening of the attack.
Saada did not address the court. Tellawi said his client did not dispute the events described in the indictment and suggested that while Saada had a political motive, personal emotions linked to his conservative Muslim background also came into play.
"This is a young man who, while in Lod, drank alcohol, behavior that his father learned about. When he asked his father to arrange for him to marry the woman he loved, his father refused," Tellawi said.
"That led my client to wake up one day and say, 'I've had it with this life,' and to find a Jew to attack."
Tellawi said his client had "thrown away" the knife after stabbing Kenino once, suggesting that Saada may have had second thoughts about killing her.
The court adjourned until April 26. Tellawi said his client wanted to consider how to respond to the main charge filed against him, attempted murder in a terrorist act.
Wrapping up her testimony, Kenino turned Saada and said her survival shows that "my God is strong, my faith is stronger than the power of your hand."
