Four Dead, 15 Injured in Jerusalem Truck Attack
from Chabad.org:
A truck plowed into a group of soldiers at the promenade in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem this afternoon, killing at least four and injuring 15. The police confirmed that it was a terrorist attack. The driver was killed at the scene.
The soldiers were disembarking from a bus at the popular tourist spot in southeastern Jerusalem when the driver of a flat-bed rig accelerated into the group.
Three women and one man, all reported to be about 20 years old, were killed in the attack. Three others were severely injured, one was moderately injured, and the others were lightly injured. A number of victims at first were trapped under the truck, according to an Magen David Adom paramedic on the scene. The victims were then transferred to either Shaarei Zedek or Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals in Jerusalem.
The victims killed in the attack were identified as:
Corporal Erez Orbach, 20, of Alon Shvut, a cadet in the officer’s training school. After his death his rank was posthumously raised to Second Lieutenant. He will be laid to rest Monday at 11 a.m.. at the Kfar Etzion cemetery.
Corporal Shira Tzur, 20, of Haifa, a cadet at the officer’s training school, was posthumously raised to Second Lieutenant. Funeral arrangements are still in preparation.
Second Lieutenant Shir Hajaj, 22, of Maale Adumim, was posthumously raised to the rank of First Lieutenant. She will be laid to rest Monday at 2 p.m. at the Har Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.
Second Lieutenant Yael Yekutiel, 20, of Givatayim, was posthumously raised to the rank of First Lieutenant. The funeral arrangements are still in preparation.
The driver of the soldiers’ bus reported that after the truck drove into the group, the terrorist “reversed and ran over them again.”
The soldiers were visiting the capital as part of an army program in which troops are given tours of Jerusalem and other historic places around the nation.
The driver was identified as Fadi al-Qanbar, a resident of Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, according to Arab media.
The attack took place during the fast of 10 Tevet, a day set aside for mourning the siege and subsequent destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians in the fifth century BCE.
More details will follow as they become available.
A ZAKA volunteer's diary
The bottom line is we are the ZAKA volunteers
We are capable of seeing difficult scenes,
We are accustomed to the hard experience of handling the dead and murdered,
We deeply absorb the grief and pain,
We take in the tragedy in which we are standing in,
We feel the horror crazy around us,
We live the kindness of handling fatalities ..
For the last 3 years in which we are at countless terrorist attacks more or less daily. Blood is spilled. Stabbed and car ramming incidents at every corner of Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Another was killed and another woman was killed, another body and another pool of blood, his head already understand that this is our routine, it’s our life, reality explodes in our faces again, every attack brings bad news and tragedy to a number of casualties.
We will always be there to “Save those who can be saved and honor those who cannot ”
I don’t often write a post where I unload my feelings, sharing to the social media with all that implies, to tell and explain in a nutshell what the ZAKA volunteers go through while handling the bodies of the murdered at attack after attack alongside routine traffic accidents, falls from a height, murder, suicide, fatal fires, and a large number of various different incidents of the angel of death, that we treat as a result.
The attack today at Armon Hanetziv took away what no other cruel attack has been able to, not the 4 people murdered in the Har Nof attack, not the shooting at Damascus Gate where an Israeli border police officer was killed and not the dozens of other terrorist incidents which have become routine where we are being beaten without end with the wounded and the dead .
Today I was at a work meeting when I hear the report over the ZAKA radio. The dispatching of volunteers to head out to the scene … I Calculate the initial moments, I’m not the closest to the scene and it’s for sure just another routine stabbing / car ramming attack with 2 or 3 casualties and the terrorist neutralized at best … I did not react immediately for some reason. …
Half a significant minute passes…
Another report came over the radio “a mass casualty incident, a mass casualty incident, a mass casualty incident in the Armon Hanetziv area.
I grab my equipment while putting on my jacket and race towards the hard scene of blood for the – who counts the amount of times …
I arrives on the scene as the last of the injured are evacuated into the ambulance an injured person with a broken leg hysterically crying unspeakable, Boaz the driver starts speeding ahead. There are no injuries left on the ground.
The chaos subsides, emergency forces start to leave the scene and we’re left with the silence of death!!!
On the green grass, with golden rays of the sun on a winter’s day. Lies four terrifying and murderous dead bodies scattered among truck wheels, their holy blood being absorbed into the ground.
4 young people whose lives were cut short at that moment. 4 more broken families. 4 holy and pure murdered. 4 worlds that were full of life once, stopped as if someone just pulled their plug.
I scans the scene and asses the nature of our work, the holy work of Chessed Shel Emet (true kindness), walking between the equipment, medical equipment that was supposed to bring life to the wounded, personal belongings of the victims, we get divided into teams and start to work.
I went together with a close friend who together we attended countless of incidents to handle one of the victims and nothing prepared us for the next thing ….
We help the forensics officer and army representative in identifying the body of the young officer, while treating the victim we hear the victim’s phone ringing.
Dad is calling, Dad is calling, Dad is calling, Dad is calling
We hold the phone as if frozen. We are 4 people with a lot of experience in handling disasters and we fail to function!!
Dear holy and pure heaven bound, your father is looking for you on the phone and calling endlessly but he still does not know that your father in Heaven has accepted you embrace and love.
You died for the name of G-d.
May your memory be blessed.
A ZAKA volunteer