Gay pride parade stabbing victim still fighting for her life

Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — One of the victims of the stabbing attack at the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade is still fighting for her life.

The 16-year-old girl is in very critical condition at Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, according to reports. She was stabbed in the chest and stomach.

Yishai Schlissel, a haredi Orthodox man from Modiin Ilit in the West Bank, remains in police custody after being deemed psychologically fit to stand trial on Friday, a day after he allegedly stabbed six marchers. Schlissel had been released from prison three weeks earlier after serving 10 years for a similar attack at Jerusalem’s 2005 gay pride parade.

On Saturday night, police for the second time detained the wife of an unnamed rabbi who has been vocal in his opposition to the pride parade, on suspicion that the couple was aware for Schlissel’s plans to attack marchers in Thursday’s parade, the Times of Israel reported, citing Hebrew news reports.

In the wake of the stabbing attack, an Israeli lawmaker announced that he is gay.

Itzik Shmuli of the Zionist Union on Friday went public with his sexual orientation in a column in the Israeli Hebrew-language daily Yediot Acharonot, saying that “it is no longer possible to remain silent.”

“We can no longer remain silent because the knife is raised against the neck of the entire LGBT community, my community,” Shmuli wrote on Friday. “It will not stop there. This is the time to fight the great darkness.”

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