Killing of Hannah Bladon

On the afternoon of 14 April 2017, Good Friday, a knife-wielding man stabbed Hannah Bladon, a 20-year-old British exchange student, aboard a Jerusalem Light Rail car in central Jerusalem. Bladon, a religion, theology and archaeology student at the University of Birmingham studying in Israel on an exchange program, was returning from volunteering at an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeological excavation in the Western Wall Tunnel. She had given up her seat for a woman with a baby and was standing next to the attacker when he stabbed her. She died in an ambulance en route to Hadassah Medical Center. Two other people, including a pregnant woman, were also injured in the attack.

An off-duty police officer riding the light rail pulled the emergency brake and tackled the attacker, who was then arrested. According to Israel's domestic security service, Shin Bet, the attacker was already known to the authorities, and the incident may have involved a "suicide by soldier" motivation similar to other attacks in the preceding eighteen months. After his arrest, the attacker reportedly told investigators he stabbed Bladon because he wanted a soldier standing beside her to kill him.

The accused, Jamil Tamimi, 57, was a Palestinian Arab from the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Security services stated he had previously been convicted of molesting his daughter in 2011. He had a history of admission to Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center and had voluntarily admitted himself to a mental health treatment facility in northern Israel the day before the attack, from which he was expelled following a violent assault on another person. On the morning of the attack, one of his sons told him the family wanted no contact with him. He reportedly told investigators he had "nothing left to lose," and that he purchased a knife in the Old City before boarding the train near Damascus Gate. Following the attack he was examined by a psychiatrist and judged mentally fit to stand trial; he was charged with premeditated murder.

Tamimi confessed to the killing, acknowledged his mental illness, and apologized. He entered a plea bargain under which he would serve 18 years in prison. Bladon's family expressed outrage at the sentence, arguing he should have received a life sentence. In January 2019, the Jerusalem District Court formally sentenced him to 18 years in prison. On 26 January 2022, Tamimi was found dead in his cell at Nitzan Prison.

The attack drew condemnation from Israeli and British officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, and Israeli ambassador to the UK Mark Regev, as well as from Hebrew University and the Bishop of Lichfield. A moment of silence was observed at Derby County F.C. and Burton Albion F.C. matches. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, later visited Jerusalem alongside the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, Ephraim Mirvis, and visited Hebrew University to honor Bladon. In response to this and other lone-wolf attacks, Israeli police revamped anti-terrorism tactics, including increased social media monitoring and improved device-tracing capabilities.