Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Terror in our Streets (2002)

Dry Bones cartoon - suicide Bombers

First Sgt.-Maj. Shoshe Atiya
The above cartoon is from 3 1/2 years ago.
And the world continues to ignore our plight.
Yesterday, again, innocent folks were killed and cruelly maimed by a human bomb sent by the Palestinians for that very purpose.
The woman to the left, in the hospital bed, is an Israeli policewoman, Shoshe Atiya.

As the Jerusalem Post Reports:
"A little before 11:30 a.m., Atiya was riding in a squad car with two other police officers down Rehov Herzl when the driver of the vehicle in front of them reported a suspicious-looking man.

The individual in question, Lotfi Abu Saada from the West Bank village of Illar, was tall, blonde and fair-skinned. "He didn't look Middle Eastern at all," noted Atiya.

Abu Saada was, however, walking in a strangely robotic fashion and had his hand buried in a black video camera case.

Atiya, who is pregnant, pursued the young man, who made his way to the nearby mall. When he cleared the barriers surrounding the front of the complex, Atiya shouted a warning to the three security guards at the doors.

"I screamed 'Terrorist! Terrorist! Get his hand out of the bag,'" she recalled.

People began to scatter. But Haim Amram, the security guard who intercepted Abu Saada, just led him away with a gentle push on the shoulder instead of trying to wrestle his hand from the bomb trigger.

Atiya watched in disbelief as both Amram and the terrorist walked towards her.

"The terrorist was waiting to detonate the bomb when he got close enough to me," she said, "and I planned to jump him and grab his hand." In the end, the bomber was just too quick. The security guard and three others were killed while Atiya escaped with minor injuries.

This would not be Atiya's first close call with a bomb. She witnessed a half a dozen suicide bombings over the years and was lightly wounded in the 1996 attack near Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Center, in which 13 people, including children in their Purim costumes, were killed.
And so it goes.

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