Yishai Katz, the 50-year-old man lightly injured in the stabbing attack in Gush Etzion Monday spoke to press several hours later about his ordeal. 

“I realized I was in mortal danger, and I realized that I should run. I defended myself with my bare hands,” Katz, a resident of Alon Shvut told Walla! News Monday.

Katz was lightly injured in the stabbing spree at the Alon Shvut Junction, in which 26-year-old Tekoa resident, Dalia Lemkos, was murdered, and another young man, 26, was moderately injured and hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center.

Documentation from security cameras at the junction show the terrorist, Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun, speeding toward a hitchhiking station in Mazda van with Israeli license plates. He ran over Lemkos, then got out of the vehicle, ran toward the station and started stabbing her. 

From there, the perpetrator tried to attack a man getting out of his car – this was apparently Katz. He chased him toward the entrance to Alon Shvut and fought with him. After stabbing Katz, the security guard to Alon Shvut arrived, and fired at the terrorist, or in the air, at close range to the terrorist.

“I was driving in the direction of the Shfela (lowland in south-central Israel) and saw the event as it was happening,” Katz described. “I stopped and saw the terrorist stab the girl at least four times. I started cursing him and moving toward him, and at that point he left her and ran toward me.”

Katz stated that he was unarmed. “I realized that with my bare hands it would be hard to neutralize him,” he said. “He managed to stab me in the cheek, cutting me relatively lightly. Someone came from behind me and then he left me, and ran back to the hitchhiking station.”

Then, Katz recounted, the stabber, al-Hashalmoun, chased after one of the guards at the gated entrance of Alon Shvut. “He struggled with him, and at one point the second security guard shot him.”

Police said the terrorist was evacuated to the hospital in critical condition but died en-route. Other reports claimed he was still alive. 

“I tried to help someone and that was it,” Katz concluded. “He [the terrorist] shouted ‘Allah Akbar’, and once I realized that the attack was also directed toward me, I turned around and defended myself with my bare hands.”

Teams of Magen David Adom were called to the scene. They gave Katz medical treatment before taking him to Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Warning: graphic footage.