Twenty-five minutes, 25 bullets, 10 dead

[boblandis]

Twenty-five minutes, 25 bullets, 10 dead

Margot Dudkevitch

(Mar 04, 2002)

 

OFRA - Shortly after 6:30 a.m. yesterday, a lone Palestinian sniper crouched under an olive tree on the side of a mountain overlooking an army roadblock on the Ramallah-Nablus road. He fired 25 bullets from his carbine, killing 10 soldiers and civilians and wounding four, before escaping unharmed.

The roadblock, situated next to the old British police station, is 1.5 kilometers north of Ofra and was erected after Sarah Leisha, a teacher, and navy Leading Rating Elad Wallerstein and air force Cpl. Amit Zenah were killed nearby in two shooting attacks on the night of November 13, 2000.

Usually, at least four or five vehicles are lined up at the roadblock at that time of morning, residents said.

With his first shots, the gunman killed the three soldiers deployed behind concrete blocks surrounding the roadblock. Soldiers sleeping in the adjacent building were alerted by the gunfire and raced out to the roadblock, some wearing only long underwear and carrying their weapons. The sniper targeted one after the other.

The roadblock commander was hit as he came out of one side of the building, the medic as he came out the other. Another soldier fell in front of the building.

The road is surrounded by steep hills. The soldiers at first thought the shots were being fired from behind the building, possibly due to an echo, and began shooting in the wrong direction. But the sniper was on the opposite side of the road.

Only after the source of gunfire was identified did they began shooting at the gunman. Some of their bullets hit the rifle, damaging it, but not before other losses. The sniper fled to nearby Palestinian Authority-controlled territory.

Sergei Butarov and Vadim Galigulov had driven up to the roadblock on their way to Ma'aleh Adumim. Butarov was hit first and then Galigulov. Lt. Ariel Hovav, driving from his home in Eli to his base, also pulled up at the roadblock. He was shot in the neck and killed instantly. Didi Yitzhak was fatally wounded and died shortly after in hospital.

The unit commander and his deputy rushed to the roadblock after receiving reports of the attack. The deputy got out of the jeep and was hit in the head and killed.

Eli Bar-Asher of Shilo drives past the roadblock almost every day. As he approached, he heard gunfire. He was unarmed and without first aid equipment. One of the vehicles behind him passed him and sped through the roadblock. There were three other vehicles there, he said.

Bar-Asher said he spotted one of the soldiers wearing long underwear shooting. "I yelled out to the soldiers to aim higher as I saw where the shooting was coming from, and then I made a U-turn and sped toward Ofra. On the way, I alerted the security forces and Avigdor Shatz, the regional council security head, and told them there was shooting and a number of wounded. Shatz was on his way to the scene. Afterward, I heard that he was hit in the chest by four bullets and is seriously wounded," said Bar-Asher.

He returned to the roadblock close to 7, and said the gunfire still continued.

Esther Lev was heading home to Eli and planned to catch another ride at the roadblock. The car she was in turned onto the highway several hundred meters from the roadblock. "Suddenly we heard gunshots and saw soldiers shooting toward the mountain. I saw a soldier lying on the ground. A jeep blocked our vision of the roadblock, but there were several civilian cars. I had planned to hitchhike from the roadblock, but we arrived later then planned. It was about 6:40. The gunfire continued for about 10 minutes. Then a bulletproof vehicle from Psagot came and took us back there," she said.

Hours later, some of the dead soldiers' belongings were neatly packed waiting to be returned to their survivors. "Twenty-five bullets in 25 minutes," said one IDF officer at the site shaking his head, "and 14 people were hit."  

[Guest Levi]

Sharon himself said it, "we are at war." Then he retaliates with overwhelming military might and kills a woman and three kids, a doctor and other medical personell in an ambulance, a bunch of ;refugees living in squalid refugee camps etc etc. Get out the rockets,tanks, and bulldozers boys, we got another m-16 shooting. I see the other Israeli nuts are coming out of the woodwork now. As if the occupation, and blockading, and full scle military offensive weren't enough, now the Israeli people are showing their own brand of fanaticism and killing Palestinian children at school...on purpose. They call themselves "the Avengers of Children" or something like that and in another incident, a bomb went off in a mosque. I think God is going to be justified in allowing the antichrist to conquer and subjugate this people as is told in prophecy.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

If Israel would obey the UN resolution 242 and return the land which Israel took after the 67 war things would be different. God is making them pay a bitter price for stealing the Palestinians land.  The Jews have been through some terrible things as a nation but they never seem to learn their lesson. If they would use the love of God with the Palestinians instead of the hatred of the devil, things would have been different.

You reap what you sow and Israel is reaping a whorl wind.

[joed86]

Are you kidding me? The reson they got that land was because in 1967 the Palestinian Authority led by Arafat along with Syria, Jordan and Egypt, surround the new tiny nation of Israel in hopes of obliterating it from the planet.

But ahhhhh, God had other plans!

So Against the most incredible odds, little David struck down the armies of Goliath! And tiny country increased its possesions three fold!

That was just a sample of things to come!

Praise God!

[George]

History of the state of Israel:

Peace Encyclopedia

Map of the UN Partition Plan 1947

On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted with a 2/3 majority to partition western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.(1) The Jews were to be granted what appears on the map in blue. Over 75% of the land allocated to the Jews was desert.

Map of the 1948 Arab Refugees

Approximately 720,000 Arabs, encouraged by their leaders to leave, fled from what is now Israel between April and December, 1948.(1) The Arab leaders promised them that they would soon be able to return following Israel's destruction. In some cases the Jews, including Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, urged the Arabs to remain, promising that they would not be harmed.(2) Those who remained became full and equal citizens of Israel, while those who chose to leave went to neighboring Arab states. Instead of welcoming their Arab brothers, and integrating them into the mainstream of their societies, the Arab states kept them in squalid refugee camps and used these Palestinians refugees as political pawns in their fight against Israel.

Map of the invasion of the 1948 War

The Arabs not only rejected partition, but attacked Israel from all sides. On the day that Israel declared its independence, the Arab League Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared "jihad", a holy war. He said, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".