Inspiring Stories of Palestinian Heroism

"For about a minute, several people with guns stood around the vehicle and pointed at the driver, but did not shoot.'

'The driver made a sign with his hands as if to say 'no,' and everyone held their fire. At some point, someone threw a large stone at the vehicle, the attacker moved, and everyone fired at him."

Bystander, Yeshiva student

 

"I heard the noise and ran to the scene."

"At first everyone thought it was an accident, but then I heard the gunshots and realized it was an attack." 

Car-ramming witness, East Jerusalem

The scene of the car-ramming, in the Ramot neighborhood in East Jerusalem on Friday.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi

 

Another deadly terrorist attack in Jerusalem. In a suburb of East Jerusalem, an area considered by the international community to be contested, 'occupied', since the Palestinian Authority claim it as their potential capital in a nascent state, a state they could have had in 1948, but refused and since them having turned down numerous peace offers that would lead to an internationally recognized state of their own, turned down as well, consistently. The while informing the international community that it is Israel's fault, for not negotiating in 'good faith'. Where in fact, Israel has offered all but two of the concessions that the PA demanded for peace, and the PA still turned them down offering no concessions of their own..

Palestinian children have grown into adults deeply steeped from their earliest formative years in a cauldron of hate to believe that 'resistance against the occupiers' as their leaders call it, is the only thing that will lead to a sovereign Palestinian state. Nurtured through children's media and school curricula which portray Jews as a threat to the existence of Palestinians, one that Palestinians must counter by pledging themselves as martyrs to their cause of statehood; they study geography texts whose maps show 'Palestine" encompassing the entire area, with no sign of the presence of Israel.

 

Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai at the scene of the ramming.Credit: Israel Police

 

To the international community which funds the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) program of the United Nations dedicated to the welfare of Palestinian 'refugees', the Palestinian Authority gives assurances of its willingness to become a peaceful law-abiding nation next to the State of Israel. To the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, incitement to terrorist acts against Israeli Jews is constant. Riots occur when Jews attempt to visit the plaza of the Temple Mount, the most sacred site in Judaism which Islam also claims as its third most sacred site. Jews are forbidden from praying there as it enrages Arab Palestinians to violence.

To the world at large Palestinians declare Israel to be an Apartheid State. Yet should a Jew venture accidentally into the West Bank or Gaza their lives are at risk, while in Israel 20 percent of its citizens are Palestinian Arabs; Israel, a home to Circassians, Druze, Kurds, Bedouin, Baha'i, Christians and Muslims. Arab Muslims serve as elected members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), as judges, are representative in all professions in the country; so much for Apartheid. 

Palestinian enmity and violent aggression against Jews and Israelis is fundamental to their narrative of 'victimhood'. As 'victims' when Palestinians commit violent offences against Jews they are celebrated as martyrs, streets named after them, and the Palestinian Authority raises them to the level of heroes. They and their families are handed out generous financial rewards for killing Jews. As it will be for the latest atrocity when on Friday a Palestinian man driving a Mazda drove it at speed directly into a crowd of people at a bus stop.

 

Five people were injured, among them an eight-year-old child taken to hospital who succumbed to his injuries several days later. At the scene of the crash the eight-year-old's six-year-old brother was pronounced dead. A 20-year-old newly-married Yeshiva student was also killed by the car ramming. An off-duty police officer who happened to be in the crowd at the bus stop shot the perpetrator dead in his vehicle. 

 

Eyewitnesses at the scene spoke of seeing the attacker steer his car into people waiting at the bus stop hours before the Jewish sabbath started. The sight of the attack was described as "shocking", with victims lying about on the street and sidewalk, by a responding Magen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross) medic.  

Members of Zaka Rescue and Recovery team work at the site of a car-ramming attack at a bus stop in Ramot, a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.  (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

At the time of the attack the injured were brought to a Jerusalem hospital where a spokesperson for the Shaare Zedek Medical Center explained that the eight-year-old's life was in "immediate danger"; that child died a day after  his six-year-old brother died at the scene of the atrocity. The attacker was identified as a resident of Issawiya a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem bordering Hebrew University. Police were ordered to set up checkpoints around Issawiya.

International media somehow manage to overlook the fact that following the death of the six-year-old child and 20-year-old man, Palestinian media erupted in a frenzy of celebration, publishing cartoons glorifying the deaths and injuries. In the streets of Gaza  children were gleefully carrying about trays of sweets, offering them to passersby. Jubilation reigned. Symbolic of the complete and utter dehumanization of a community.

Man filming himself overseeing distribution of sweets celebrating terror attack in Jerusalem that killed an Israeli child and 20 year old newly-wed on Friday. Photo: Screenshot.

"We affirm that this blessed operation, which healed the hearts of our people, came as a natural and legitimate response to the crimes of the occupation", a statement by the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, summing up the numbing mindset of Palestinian revellers.  The attacker's uncle told the Palestine Post Network that Qaraqe "loved Palestine all his life, and he was suffering from a severe injury in his back", but he chose not to live in 'Palestine', but in Jerusalem. Sympathy is being elicited in the Arab media for the man who killed three Jews;  he had a history of lauding terrorists on social media, posting “Glory to the pure souls” in reference to those who committed previous atrocities.

 

In the U.S. media, a headline by CNN read: “Two dead including child as car rams people at Jerusalem bus stop,” which prompted the Israel Foreign Ministry to respond: “This wasn’t a self-driving car @CNN,” on Twitter. “The driver, a Palestinian terrorist *intentionally* rammed into a bus stop packed with children and families traveling before Shabbat.” 

 

Credit: Olivier Fitoussi