Israel News for March 9, 2016
Jerusalem Terror
Two terrorists from East Jerusalem shot at a bus from their car on Golda Meir Street in Jerusalem. No one on the bus was hurt. A passerby who saw the incident got out of his car and fired a shot at the terrorist. The terrorists were not hit and drove away. Security forces began searching for the vehicle. Police identified the vehicle on a nearby street. When they approached the vehicle the terrorists opened fire. Police returned fire and killed the terrorists. Two automatic rifles were found in their car.
A 57 year old Palestinian bystander who was in his car was shot and seriously wounded in the cross fire.
Yesterday a terrorist opened fire on police with a rifle in Jerusalem’s Old City. Police returned fire and killed the terrorist. The two policemen were wounded in the neck and head and evacuated to Hadassah Hospital where one, 49, remains in very serious condition and in danger of losing his life, while the other, 31, is in moderate-to-serious condition and stable.
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Jaffa Terror
Last night a 22 year old Palestinian terrorist from Qalqilya stabbed an American tourist to death and wounded 11 others on the boardwalk and in the the port area of Jaffa.
US Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Israel, was just a mile away at an event with Shimon Peres when the stabbings occurred. Biden’s wife and grandchildren were having dinner on the beach not far from the site of the stabbings.
After meeting with PM Netanyahu today Biden said, “The United States of America condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts. The kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to condemn it, the rhetoric that incites that violence, the retribution that it generates, has to stop.”
The Palestinian Authority did not condemn the attack. In fact official Palestinian TV praised the attack. Of course, Hamas praised the attack too. Biden will be meeting with PA President Abbas today. Wonder how that will go.
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American Killed
The American tourist killed in yesterday’s terror attack in Jaffa was identified as Taylor Force. Force, 28, was a first-year student in the Vanderbilt University graduate school of management in Nashville Tennessee. He was among 29 students and four staff members who had gone to Israel to study global entrepreneurship. According to Force’s LinkedIn page, he graduated from West Point in 2009 and was a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army until 2014. Vanderbilt chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said, “This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world.”
The school confirmed that all the other Vanderbilt participants in Israel are safe.
For further reading click here.
Petach Tikva Terror
In Petach Tikva yesterday, a Jewish man entering a store was stabbed from behind by a Palestinian. Yonatan Ezriyahav, 39, a father of five from Yavne’el in northern Israel, arrived at the Petah Tikva market to hand out leaflets about Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
Ezriyahav recounted, “I was in the store, and all of a sudden, someone jumped on me. I didn’t understand what he was doing, until someone yelled ‘terrorist!’ and I realized (what was going on) and saw the knife. I felt it in my neck, and I asked ‘what happened to me?’ I thought it was the end. It took me a bit but I pulled myself together and when I realized it was a terrorist I realized that I need to fight him so that he wouldn’t kill anyone else. I said ‘If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But when I am for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?'”
Meanwhile, the store owner jumped on the terrorist and grabbed his arm while Ezriyahav removed the knife from his neck and managed to stab to terrorist multiple times. Ezriyahav was evacuated to the hospital and is doing well. The terrorist died of his wounds.
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