Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Slain British Woman Gave Her Seat To A Woman With A Baby

The British student killed by a Palestinian assailant on the Jerusalem light rail had just given up her seat so that a woman holding a baby could sit down, according to a report on Israel’s Channel 2 news.

Hannah Bladon, 20, had just moved to the exit door of the train so that the woman could rest when she was stabbed by 57-year-old Palestinian Jamil Tamimi.

Tamimi, who had just left a mental hospital when he made the attack, told investigators that he stabbed Bladon to get a nearby soldier to kill him.

Tamimi said he had “nothing left to lose” when his son told him that the family wanted no contact with him in part because of a past conviction of sexually abusing his daughter.

Bladon, an exchange student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had recently volunteered at an archaeological excavation in the Western Wall tunnels.

Bladon’s family described their daughter as a selfless young woman.

In a statement on Saturday, her family said Bladon “was the most caring, sensitive and compassionate daughter you could ever wish for,” reported the Times of Israel.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.