Thursday, July 03, 2008

Stories from the Bulldozer Attack

Six-month-old Efrat Onterman is left motherless after the murderous terror attack on Wednesday evening in Jerusalem. From the time her mother Batsheva Onterman was crushed to death right next to her during the terrorist’s tractor rampage, Efrat was already placed in the hands of a foster family “that first and foremost embraced her.” Afterwards, she was placed in her aunt’s care.

This heart-wrenching story started with the trampling of one of the vehicles during the terrorist’s lethal massacring campaign. Batsheva did not survive, but small Efrat who was by her side was miraculously left untouched.

The 33-year-old mother from Jerusalem will be laid to rest on Wednesday night at 11:30 pm at the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in the city. Elizabeth Goren Friedman, 54 from Jerusalem will be buried there as well. Another person was killed as a result of the malicious attack and dozens of others were injured.

The deadly terror attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday claimed the lives of three people and wreaked havoc on countless families. But perhaps the most touching, and tragic stories remains that of the five-month old baby girl who lost her mother in the rampage.

Eyal Zehavi, a Magen David Adom paramedic who rushed to the scene with his wife treated both the girl and another infant.

“Someone passed the baby to me and screamed, “I just saved her from the car in which her mother was killed,” said Zehavi.

“It took me a minute and a half to check her, I did an extensive examination of her body, looked for broken bones, wounds and breathing difficulties but thankfully she was fine and I transferred her to the ambulance which took her to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.”

Zehavi and his wife, who is seven months pregnant and also in the medical field, helped move the body of the baby girl's mother so it could be evacuated. (YNET)

The Bulldozer of Death

This video shows the path the bulldozer took, including footage showing the terrorist being killed from different angles.



Yet who exactly is this brave soldier?

On IDF "Galei Tzahal" Radio this morning, Orit Struk was interviewed as head of "Human Rights for Residents of YESHA" (West Bank), where she recounted how she knows this particular soldier quite well.

Before the Disengagement, when the pro-settler demonstrations were taking place, this teenager was assigned to film the demonstrations, as testimony to police brutality. While filming from the sidewalk, policemen beat him till he lost consciousness, he was then arrested, denied medical treatment and charged with, "attacking a police officer."

Over the following months, Orit's organization helped the teenager with legal and moral support. The case was eventually dismissed, due to "lack of sufficient evidence", but that is enough to keep a criminal record in Israel, "open". From there his problems only because worse.

When he was of draft age, he tried to enlist to elite units, yet the IDF wanted nothing to do with potential soldiers who had demonstrated against the Disengagement. He was sent to see the "Kaban", the IDF psychological evaluations officer to see if he was "fit" to serve, and was sent to him over and over again, as well as to other committees. He did not give up, and insisted he wanted to fight in Israel's elite IDF units. After close to a year of "bucking the system", he was allowed to join the elite "Egoz" unit. Orit added that this is currently the situation for hundreds of teenagers who demonstrated against the Disengagement.

We clearly see that this brave soldier is truly worthy of being in an elite unit, and its a shame the system tried it's best to discourage him.

Over the past few months, we see more and more "soldiers on leave" who have stopped terrorists. Maybe if we had more soldiers on leave, the country would be a safer place?

Warning: Semi-graphic picture ahead....

And who is this smiling gentleman?

It's the terrorist who drove the bulldozer. His family is complaining that he shouldn't have been shot.

The lawyer representing the family of bulldozer driver Hossam Dawyyat of east Jerusalem, who murdered three people and injured dozens during a killing spree in Jerusalem on Wednesday, said Thursday that had the police cuffed the terrorist's hands and legs and removed him from the vehicle, the incident would have ended at once and "life would have been spared."

The terror attack's third victim, Jean Relevy, 68, of Jerusalem, was laid to rest on Thursday afternoon.

Issam, the terrorist's brother, said the Dawyyat family refused to believe that their son carried out a terror attack.

"My brother did not belong to any organization. He wasn’t even a religious person. After terror attacks he always used to say, 'What is this nonsense? Why do we need this?'"

According to the brother, the incident may have been a road accident which had gone wrong. "Any person responsible for a road accident is alarmed and afraid. This can happen to anyone, and this could have been a road accident. It's possible that my brother was scared when people started chasing him and shooting," he told Ynet.

However, Issam did not rule out the possibility that his brother had lost control and gone on a rampage under the influence of drugs. "It was easy to irritate him. He had a criminal record for violence offenses and he was punished for this." (YNET)

This is what was taken away.

Why do we give up bodies of terrorists for burial? Let our enemies beg us for them.

















Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

16 comments:

Lion of Zion said...

what do you make of all the news reports that give the yassamnik the major credit (as i first read by rafi). for example the last clip in your video describes the yassamnik as leaping onto the tractor to take out the terrorists, and only then notes about plesser וירה אף הוא

at 1:00, who is saying איזה מטומטמים למה לא עשיתם את זה לפני

Tzipporah said...

Yishar Koyach, Jameel, for all your work helping the victims.

Although I understand why we would assume this was a terror attack, as I heard more about the driver it seemed to me like someone having a mental problem (or, as the family stated, on drugs). The circumstances just remind me of the shooting rampages or crashing into crowds we sometimes get here in the US with unstable people.

Does the Jerusalem coroner get involved to autopsy the killer's body before it gets released back to the family?

Unknown said...

This was no 'crazed' person.He knew exactly what he was doing and had complete control of his vehicle.Ending with his 'ala achbar.'
I know mental disorder and this is not it .This is Terrorism!

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Tzipporah: The bulldozer driver was screaming Allahu Akbar as he smashed the bus with the bulldozer's scoop. Thats pretty indicative of terrorist behaviour...

LoZ: the police wanted to take as much credit as possible...it doesnt look good for young army kids with tzitzis hanging out to be killing terrorists...

Don said...

Daniel Pipes has termed such spontaneous attacks "sudden jihadi syndrome" and has written about it. The Merkaz HaRav attack was similar. As much as terrorist organizations would like to take credit, generally there is no organization behind it. The Arab milieu is filled with enough incitement (schools & mosques) that an organization needn't be blamed.

Rafi G. said...

his Jewish lawyer is saying he was not a terrorist and this was not a terrorist attack. It was simply a traffic accident.

Jack Steiner said...

We can debate all we want about motive, but in the name of pikuach nefesh it doesn't make much of a difference.

He was in control of a vehicle that is capable of massive destruction and death. You take the driver out ASAP.

If that means shooting him so that others do not die, then so be it.

Anonymous said...

Not only should we make them beg for the body, but like Haman, the body should be displayed

TikunOlam said...

A person can be mentally unstable, on drugs and also perpetrate a terrorist attack. One does not discount the other. The Columbine kids were clearly suffering from some depression related symptoms that expressed themselves in murderous rage too - that does not make it any less of a horrific terroristic act - or make the victims any less dead. It does not make them any less responsible for their actions.

The overwhelming majority of mentally ill people do not go on killing sprees, even in their worst states of mind. Same with most people on drugs.

Anonymous said...

Everyone seems to have missed that this terrorist was in jail for 20 months for raping and beating up a Jewish woman whom he convinced to be his girlfriend.

But she sounds like a typical leftist, when she claims she deserved it and he was a "good and caring person".

Anonymous said...

mr. muqata, when will you stop treating every tragedy in israel as an opportunity to drive traffic to your blog through pictures, videos, and adventure stories?

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

anonymous 10:33

Hmmm. I thought I blogged about all my regular adventures as well that aren't tragedy related.

Lets look at the posts from the past few weeks:

New Bridge in Jerusalem.
iPod's are banned
Election Day Kiddush
Democracy in Action
and 2 days about the terror attack.

My blog reflects reality here in Israel. The headlines of every single paper in Israel has been about the terror attack.

Is there anything else you would prefer to see instead in addition to my regular programming?

Shabbat Shalom!

Lurker said...

Anonymous @ 10:32 AM: mr. muqata, when will you stop treating every tragedy in israel as an opportunity to drive traffic to your blog through pictures, videos, and adventure stories?

Jameel: My blog reflects reality here in Israel. The headlines of every single paper in Israel has been about the terror attack.

Perhaps Mr. Anonymous would prefer that we all just ignore reality and terror attacks. Then, in our ignorant bliss, we can return to making concessions in our "peace process" with the Palestinians...

Daniel said...

which American presidential candidate seem like
A. the cop that tried to restrain the terrorist
or
B Moshe Plesser , who grabbed the gun and killed that SPOS

yitz said...

The above "muslims vs. sharia" piece actually quotes the Herald-Sun, which in turns quotes AFP.

"A LITTLE-KNOWN group calling itself the Imad Mughnieh unit of the Brigades of the Liberators of the Galilee claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in Jerusalem today in a phone call to AFP.
The same group claimed an attack in March on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight people, which they said was revenge for the killing of senior Lebanese Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh in Damascus."


So EVEN some of the MSM do point out that this was an organized terror attack. Why is no one else [except Debka] checking this angle out?

Anonymous said...

Please consider joining the huge, free blog called Newsvine.com, and help fight the anti-Israeli bigots and anti-semites there! It was ridiculous how some of them spun this terrorist attact, and blamed Israel! its even more outragoue that MSNBC.com and its paying sponsors are putting money into the pockets of Newsvine.com Jew bashers! Please join the fight at Newsvine.com, and make those bigots know you won't stand for their hate!

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