The Jerusalem District Court unanimously convicted terrorist Adnan Qaria on Tuesday of attempted murder as an act of terrorism and possession of a knife, nearly two years after he attempted to stab an IDF soldier to death on Sayeret Duchifat Street in Jerusalem in December 2024.
The verdict described how Qaria “drove his vehicle, spotted the soldier Y.G. walking alone in uniform down the sidewalk, made a U-turn and stopped on the side of the road. He exited his vehicle armed with a knife with a blade approximately 13 centimeters long.”
“The defendant ran toward the soldier with the knife raised above his shoulder in a stabbing motion and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ ‘I will stab you,’ and ‘You will die today,’” the ruling stated. The soldier backed away, cocked his weapon and ordered Qaria in both Arabic and Hebrew to stop and get on the ground. Qaria briefly moved back toward his vehicle before turning and advancing toward the soldier again. The soldier then fired a warning shot into the air. When Qaria continued advancing, the soldier fired several rounds and neutralized him.
Qaria later claimed that he had acted out of “mental distress and despair.” According to the ruling, he maintained that he had shouted at the soldier to “shoot me in the head” and had not intended to harm anyone. However, according to the conviction, during his second police interrogation Qaria explicitly admitted that he wanted to kill a Jewish soldier for nationalist-ideological reasons in order to become a “martyr,” acknowledging that the version he had previously given was false. The court rejected the defense’s claim that the confession had been coerced, finding that Qaria gave it freely and voluntarily.