The knife used by an Arab terrorist in a stabbing attack in Kiryat Arba. The terrorist was shot and killed. Photo: Israel Police Foreign Press.

Amid the recent wave of terror sweeping Israel, research group the Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Center released a report on Tuesday profiling what it called the “Palestinian who most commonly carries out a terrorist attack in Israel, especially a stabbing attack.”

The assailant is usually male (as there have been female attackers as well), young, between the ages of 17 and 19, and unmarried, according to the report. He is likely from an east Jerusalem neighborhood, especially Jabel Mukaber or Sur Baher, or the Hebron area.

Israeli officials have been referring to the attackers as acting mostly on their own and indeed the Meir Amit center’s report agreed with the assessment, saying the average attacker was following a spontaneous personal decision without following any formal organization or leadership.

Although the six-week span of intensified Palestinian attacks erupted largely after rumors of an Israeli takeover of the Temple Mount — a holy site for both Muslims and Jews — most of the Palestinians and Jerusalem residents who carried out the attacks were secular, according to the report.

The report also claimed the attackers were largely “personally and socially frustrated,” feeding off anti-Israel incitement on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. This explanation was also expressed on Wednesday in an Arabic letter sent around by Jerusalem educational authorities to parents in the city asking them to pay special attention to distress signals from their children, including possible “feelings of helplessness” or destructive behavior.

The Meir Amit report said the futile nature of these stabbing attacks to influence Israel in the way of the more devastating attacks of the intifadas may “indicate the depth of the frustration and desperation felt by the younger generation of Palestinians at the forefront of the wave of attacks.” The report noted that the combination of “difficult conditions” in many Arab east Jerusalem neighborhoods coupled with the proximity to the flash point Temple Mount area has also galvanized young Palestinians from the eastern part of the city to carry out attacks.

Since September 14, 12 Israelis have been killed in the violence as well as 70 Palestinians, most of the Palestinians were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks or in clashes with Israeli security forces.