Brooklyn man says Israel is ‘safest place in world’ after being shot by Palestinian
>
A ‘beloved’ cancer survivor, mother-to-be and a 22-year-old on a birthright trip to Israel have been named among the American victims of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Saturday night.
In total, eight people were wounded in the shooting that happened near David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City walls. Five of the victims are American.
The gunman, named as East Jerusalem resident Amir Sidawi, opened fire at two locations around 6:30 pm Eastern time. First, he struck a bus that was waiting at a parking lot, shortly afterwards, he fired at a crowd close to the bus.
A Brooklyn man who was wounded in the shooting, Menachem Palace, 22, of Crown Heights, spoke openly to the media following the incident.
Palace said in the interview that he was in Israel with a group as part of a birthright trip to the Middle East. Birthright trips are free excursions to Israel offered to young Jewish adults across the world. They are paid for through charitable donations.
During his interview with Israeli outlet COLlive, Palace said that he arrived in Israel on Friday night and did not plan to cut short his trip because of the incident.
He told the interviewer: ‘The trip ends on Thursday and I plan to stay. This is our land – the safest place in the world.’
Brooklyn resident Menachem Palace told Israeli TV that he wouldn’t be cutting his trip to the Holy Land short despite being shot in a terrorist attack
The gunman, named as East Jerusalem resident Amir Sidawi, opened fire at two locations around 6:30 pm Eastern time
According to authorities, Sidawi left the gun used in the shooting in the back of a cab after he hailed the taxi in order to turn himself in
Recounting the shooting, Palace said : ‘I looked to my right, next to the window I was sitting next to, and I saw that it was completely smashed. I quickly ducked down and saw blood on my shoulder.’
Palace continued: ‘From all the adrenaline, I didn’t notice that a bullet went into my shoulder.’
During a speech on Sunday, New York Senator Chuck Schumer identified one of the victims as Shia Hersch Glick of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Glick was ‘shot in the neck while shielding his wife and kids,’ Sen. Schumer said, according to the New York Post. He is listed as being in critical condition and is on a respirator but is expected to survive.
The Democratic lawmaker described Glick as a ‘cancer survivor beloved by all in the community.’ He is a member of the Satmar Hasidic movement, a branch of ultra-orthodox Judaism.
His son was also wounded after being shot in the arm. The executive director of United Jewish Organizations Rabbi David Niederman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Glick’s wife and daughter were also wounded.
Niederman said that the family was in the Holy Land because Glick’s son is getting married. They were waiting for a taxi when they were struck.
A friend of Glick’s told the New York Daily News: ‘We need him. He doesn’t deserve to die. He never hurt a fly.’
The friend, Isaac Weiss, said that Glick ‘pounced’ on this family when the gunfire began.
A pregnant woman who was shot the abdomen in the attack was forced to give birth via C-section due to her injuries.
Dr. Alon Schwartz of Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center told i24 News in Israel: ‘The baby is intubated in the neo-natal intensive-care unit — ventilated and intubated and in serious condition, also.’
The suspect has been named as 26-year-old East Jerusalem Amir Sidawi. According to Israeli authorities, Sidawi hailed a cab and went to a nearby police station to turn himself in on Sunday morning.
The man who drove Sidawi, named as Shalom Harush, said that it was ‘not a good feeling’ having the suspected terrorist in his car.
The cabbie added that the suspect left the gun used in the attack on the floor of the car.
Officials in Israel believe that Sidawi acted alone in the shooting. Despite this, his brother has also been remanded in custody for three days, reports YNET News.
The outlet reports that Sidawi was convicted of grievous bodily harm in 2015, serving five years in prison. While in prison, Sidawi underwent anger management therapy.
A worshipper puts his finger on a bullet hole in the bus window in the early hours today
Members of the city’s ZAKA Search and Rescue team are pictured cleaning blood off street
Ultra Orthodox Jews look on at the street in East Jerusalem’s Old City, where the bus was hit
According to the Guardian, Sidawi was worried what effect his actions would have on his family.
The newspaper also quoted a Hamas spokesperson praising the shooting as a ‘heroic operation’ but did not claim responsibility.
In a statement Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said: ‘This was a lone assailant, a resident of the city with a criminal background. Whoever harms Israeli citizens has nowhere to hide.’
Paramedics on motorbikes respond to the shooting that saw several Israeli worshippers hurt
An Israeli security official stands behind a shattered window as he probes the attack scene
Non-American victims included Israeli brothers Elazar and Dovi. Both are expected to survive.
Their older brother, Yair, told the Times of Israel: ‘My two brothers were together last night, waiting for the bus. Elazar helped a woman get on the bus, and my 16-and-a-half-year-old brother Dovi was still at the bus stop when the shooting started.’
Yair went on: ‘Dovi called himself and told [the family] that they were both hit by a bullet, that he was conscious and that he was quite well. It calmed us down.’
The bus driver, Daniel Kanievsky, told the BBC: ‘We opened the ramp for someone on a wheelchair, and then the shooting started. Everyone got down on the floor, screaming. I tried to escape, but the bus couldn’t drive with the ramp open.’
The attack in Jerusalem followed a tense week between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli aircraft unleashed an offensive in the Gaza Strip targeting the militant group Islamic Jihad and setting off three days of fierce cross-border fighting.
Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up to avenge the airstrikes, which killed two of its commanders and other militants.
Israel said the attack was meant to thwart threats from the group to respond to the arrest of one of its officials in the occupied West Bank.
Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed, and several hundred were injured in the fighting, which ended with an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.
No Israeli was killed or seriously injured.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, stayed on the sidelines.
A day after the cease-fire halted the worst round of Gaza fighting in more than a year, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.