An employee at the Israeli embassy in China was attacked and stabbed in Beijing on Oct. 13.

Embassy employee

The victim, a 50-year-old Israeli man, was stabbed in front of a local supermarket, according to SCMP.

The man is an employee of the Israeli embassy, as well as a spouse of a Israeli diplomat.

The Global Times also reported that the alleged attacker was a 53-year-old foreign man, since arrested by local police.

Video circulating on social media of the incident apparently shows the two men grappling as the attacker attempted to stab the victim with a knife several times. The footage has not been independently verified by Mothership.

Eventually, the victim managed to escape the scene, while the attacker, said to work at a small commodities business, limped away.

According to SCMP, a witness shared that screams from the attack attracted the attention of passersby, some of whom called the police.

The police and an ambulance arrived shortly, and the victim was taken to the hospital in a police car.

The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that the attack had taken place on one of their employees, adding that the victim was being treated in a local hospital and is in a stable condition.

Israel-Hamas war

The attack comes amidst a week of intense violence in Israel, as the southern part of the country was attacked by the militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing over 1,600 people and taking hundreds more hostage, many of whom were civilians.

Israel has retaliated with massive airstrikes, reportedly leveling whole neighborhoods and causing hundreds of deaths and casualties.

A Hamas leader had called on Friday Oct. 13 to be a "day of rage" or "day of anger", calling on its supporters worldwide protest in support of Palestine and and Gaza, according to ABC News, adding that supporters should show that "we are part of this battle".

Many in the Middle East took to the streets to show solidarity with the people of Gaza, according to Bloomberg.

Initially, several English language outlets such as France24 and the Associated Press linked the stabbing to the crisis in Israel and the "day of rage".

However, it was not immediately clear that the incidents were linked, with some social media attributing the attack to a case of road rage.

But what is clear is that the tensions are high enough that any incident is being immediately linked, indicating that concerns over such attacks are currently very heightened.

The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli foreign ministry issued a warning to citizens to be more careful on Oct. 13.

France attack

A separate incident in France highlights this, as a teacher was stabbed to death in France, according to the Guardian.

The stabbing, which also critically injured two others, occured at a school in Arras in the north of France.

The suspect in the case was a 20-year-old man who was on a watchlist of people thought to be a security risk due to links to radical Islamism, as well as being a former student of the school.

The man was added to the watchlist in the past two weeks, and had been detained the previous day but was released.

The attack also comes on the anniversary of a previous fatal attack on a history teacher, with one witness saying that the attacker was looking for other history teachers to attack.

French president Emmanuel Macron visited the scene of the attack, paying tribute to the teacher, saying that he had intervened in the attack and likely saved many lives.

@mothershipsg In Aug. 2023, Taiwan warned of a surge in tensions, as a record number of Chinese fighter jets crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. #sgnews #tiktoksg #taiwan ♬ original sound - Mothership

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