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| By Israel Insider staff January 24, 2008 |
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Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli border checkpoint near Shuafat on the old road to Pisgat Zeev, Jerusalem Thursday night, killing one border guard and leaving his female partner with serious chest wounds. The two gunmen escaped. Massive Israeli forces arrived on the scene and set up a manhunt.
Rami Zoari was laid to rest at the military cemetery in Beersheba. "Rami was fanatic about Magav (the Border Police)," his father Shlomo said, saying his son had hoped to one day become an officer in the force. "He planned to undergo a squad commander course and then an officer course."
From her bed in Hadassa Ein Kerem Hospital, Shoshana Samendoyev, the border policewomen seriously wounded in the attack recalled the attack to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter. "I tried to cock my weapon but then I fainted", she said. "I came to a couple of minutes later and I could feel I was being fired upon, so I cocked my weapon and started firing at a vehicle I could barely see. Then I fainted again because of loss of blood."
Samendoyev said she tried to call out to Zoari but received no reply. She then crawled to the barrier in time to see an IDF jeep arrive at the scene, before losing consciousness again.
Samendoyev is a "true warrior who shot back at the terrorist and called for help," Dichter said. "These policemen [toil] day and night for the security of Jerusalem and the state."
Police Chief Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said that his forces would not rest until they caught the perpetrators of the attack.
"We will do everything in order to apprehend the murderers," the police chief said. "To the best of my understanding, the officers acted according to the current protocol. I would like to point out that the policemen work here year round, performing high-level operational work, and they deserve the highest superlatives for preventing previous terror attacks."
ZAKA paramedic Yisrael Wertheimer, first on the scene, attended to the wounded female officer under fire. "I had to operate under fire. There was still shooting in the background. We worked on the ground, very close to her, to avoid being hit by crossfire," he told Army Radio.
The "Rabbis of Eretz Israel Committee" said on Friday that the Shas religious party was responsible for the terror attack Thursday because it had opted to stay in the coalition.
"The Olmert government decided to give the heart of the country to terrorists, and the results are not slow in coming," the committee's press statement said. The organization's Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolfa, recently investigated on charges of incitement, warned that his organization would be forced to resort to "extreme measures" in order to prevent "another Oslo" if Shas failed to quit the coalition.
Fatah militants belonging to the "Brigades of Return" and "Black September" cells claimed responsibility for the attack on the border police post in Shuafat. A spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of West Bank chieftain Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group, told Ynet that the attackers "returned to their base safely."
The Fatah spokesman called a Ynet reporter to claim responsibility for the attack and said it marked the continuation of the organization's new policy, in which it was no longer committed to calm with Israel, and said that cells were again active across the West Bank preparing more attacks.
"This is our proof that we are no longer committed to the calm and that we do not intend to continue handing over our weapons," the spokesman said. "We are only committed to resistance against the Israeli occupation. The next attacks are already underway, we promised a response within a few days and this is the first operation in a series of operations."
Last week, an al-Aqsa Brigade leader in the Nablus area was killed by IDF troops. |
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