The hashtag #JeSuisCouteau which means “I am knife” has begun trending on Twitter as users flock to social media to heap praise on the Palestinian terrorist who stabbed 11 Israelis on a bus in Tel Aviv Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported. 

The latest hashtag is an attempt to re-appropriate #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie) which swept the world after the massacre at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. 

Tweets using #JeSuisCouteau are often accompanied by illustrations of the Palestinian flag, a jihadist, and a bloody knife. They are being posted in support of the stabber – Hamza Mohammed Hassan Matrouk – who was shot and arrested on the scene by a police officer. 

Matrouk, a resident of Tulkarm in Samaria, first stabbed the driver on the #40 bus en route to Tel Aviv University, before turning his knife on passengers.

Nine people in total were injured, four of them seriously, including the driver who struggled with Matrouk in an attempt to save passengers.

Israeli police described the brutal assault as a “terror attack” with several foreign nations also condemning it as such. 

France, who suffered a spate of terror attacks recently, including the Charlie Hebdo attack as well as an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, assured the people of Israel their solidarity against terrorism. 

Terrorist group Hamas, however, praised the Tel Aviv attack as “brave and heroic” in a tweet by Izzat Risheq, a Hamas leader who resides in Qatar. 

Hamas, which controls Gaza, did not claim responsibility for the violence, but Risheq added that the stabbing was “a natural response to the occupation and its terrorist crimes against our people.”

Israel maintains that terror attacks such as Wednesday’s stem from incitement by Palestinian leaders.