Female Tour Guide "Stabbed by Arabs" in Israel *UPDATED*

From Y Net News:

A 46-year old tourist from the US was found bound Saturday evening near Beit-Shemesh, suffering from knife wounds in the stomach and chest.

The woman, who says she was attacked by two Arabs, succeeded in seeking medical attention at the edge of the town in which she was assaulted though her hands were bound. She was hospitalized in critical condition.

Police have launched a search for the culprits.

Haaretz, however, identifies the woman as an Israeli:

A woman in her 40s was stabbed Saturday while she was hiking in a mountainous area in the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The woman arrived in a nearby town, Moshav Mata, with her hands tied and bleeding from her chest and back. She told people in the town that she had been stabbed by two Arab men while she was hiking in a valley nearby.

Magen David Adom ambulance services arrived at the scene and transferred her to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in serious condition, where her condition improved later to moderate and stable.

***UPDATE 19:10*** Y Net News has updated the story - the stabbed woman appears to be an Israeli tour guide. Her friend is still missing, and police are looking into the possibility that she has been kidnapped:

Police have launched a search in the forested hills surrounding Jerusalem.

The incident occurred, according to the wounded guide, after she and her friend ended a trip to a winery by hiking in the nearby riverbed.

On their way back they were attacked by two Arab youths, who stabbed them, she said. She succeeded in escaping their clutches, and made her way to a nearby road where, bleeding profusely, she sought help.

Police Commander Aharon Franco told reporters that security forces were streaming into the area to search for the hiker, who has been missing for three hours.

"We succeeded in getting a description of the assailants from the tour guide before she was taken to the hospital," Franco said.

"Right now we know nothing about (the missing woman). The victim gave us a description and we are conducting the search accordingly. We don't know much about the two assailants either."

***UPDATE 19/12/10***

Haaretz reports that the woman who was stabbed but escaped is an Israeli originally from Britain.

Her missing American friend, feared kidnapped by their Arab assailants, has been found dead:

Israeli security forces early Sunday found the body of Christine Logan, an American tourist woman feared kidnapped by Arab assailants while hiking with a friend near Jerusalem the day before.

Logan's friend, 46-year-old Kaye Susan Wilson, was hospitalized after she managed to escape her attackers despite multiple stab wounds and her hands tied behind her back.

Wilson, an immigrant from the United Kingdom who now resides in a Jerusalem-area community, told paramedics and police officers that she and Logan were assaulted by two Arab men while hiking at Khirbet Hanut, an archaeological site near Beit Shemesh.

Wislon said that she pretended to be dead to escape further attack and then managed to flee the scene and reach the road; Logan did not. After speaking briefly to investigators, Wilson was taken to the Hadassah University Hospital, where her condition was reported to be stable.

Police identified Logan's body early Sunday and are continuing to focus their investigation on the circumstances of the incident and searching after the perpetrators. Jerusalem District Police Chief Aharon Franco said on Saturday that the investigation would not rule out the possibility of the incident having been a terrorist attack.

***UPDATE 20/12/10***

The attack is now being described by the Israeli police as "politically motivated":

An attack on two women that left an American tourist dead and the other in hospital with several knife wounds appears to have been politically motivated, Israeli police said Sunday.

Wilson told Israeli media that she and Logan were hiking in the hills southwest of Jerusalem Saturday when they were approached by two Arab men. She said the men asked them for water, and then she and her friend walked away.

When the women headed back to the main trail, they were suddenly and brutally attacked.

"It all happened so fast. They came and attacked us," Wilson, 46, told reporters.

She said one of the men took out a large knife -- "like a bread knife with a serrated edge," Wilson said -- and the men began to stab them.

"It was clear that they came to kill," she added. "Who carries around a knife like that?"

At one point, Wilson said one of her attackers took a Star of David chain off her neck, "then turned me around and stabbed in the place where the Star of David had been."