BEIJING – An employee of Israel’s embassy in Beijing suffered injuries in an apparent daylight knife attack on the street, though it was not immediately clear what motivated the incident.

The staff member is in a stable condition in the hospital, an Israeli embassy spokesperson told Bloomberg News, and the attack on Friday was being investigated. 

A video circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows a man dressed in white wrestling on a sidewalk with a middle-aged man.

The man in white then stabs the other person several times.

The clip, apparently filmed by someone in a building overlooking the street, later shows the victim moving to safety and the attacker fleeing.

A separate video filmed on street level shows people helping the bloodied victim.

A voice can be heard saying in Mandarin: “I’m from the Israeli embassy.” 

Another voice says in English: “An ambulance will be coming soon.”

The person who posted the videos on X did not respond to messages on Friday evening.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment, and a police officer in Beijing who answered the phone declined to say anything.

There is no indication that the episode is linked to the crisis in Gaza.

Mr Hu Xijin, a former editor of the Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper, said on the social media site Weibo that the attacker must be punished according to the law, regardless of his purpose. BLOOMBERG