Israeli police officers. Photo: wiki commons.

An unidentified Arab youth attacked a 59-year-old man with an axe near Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, on Monday morning. The victim suffered light head injuries and was evacuated by Magen David Adom paramedics for treatment at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem.

Haaretz reported that the victim was on his way to the Western Wall, “when a man jumped on him from behind with an axe and started beating him.” After a brief struggle, the victim allegedly wrestled the axe from the attacker’s hands.

Shlomo Brendmeck, who arrived at the scene shortly after the incident, found the victim frightened and nervous and said “I think if the blade had hit his head directly, the man would no longer be with us. He was lucky. It was a serious axe”.

The suspect managed to flee the scene of the attack and Israeli police are reportedly carrying out a “massive manhunt” for the attacker.

On Monday, Deputy Knesset Speaker Danny Danon (Likud) said imprisoned terror chief Marwan Barghouti is responsible for inciting the axe attack in Jerusalem. Barghouti was sentenced to solitary confinement on Sunday after he illegally smuggled a letter from his prison cell. The letter “called on Palestinians to launch a new popular intifada against Israel”, praised terrorists, and  “called on Arab and Islamic countries to assist the Palestinians in boycotting and isolating Israel and resisting all forms of normalization with Israelis.”

According to Israel’s Prison Service, he will be subject to a week of solitary confinement, “and the revoking of cafeteria and visitation rights for the duration of the week.” Barghouti who is a member of Fatah, is currently serving five life sentences in prison after being convicted of multiple terror attacks against Israelis.

Danon added, “Barghouti’s incitement calling for rampaging Arab terror has reached the capital of Israel. The nightmare of Arab pillaging has become a daily reality. The axe attack in the center of Jerusalem is a case right out of the Middle Ages. All Arabs who engage in terror need to be put back in their own Middle Ages and be locked up in a solitary cell with Marwan Barghouti, who incites to terror and is responsible for the attack. We must lift the axe of justice over the neck of rampant Arab terror before it is too late.”