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A mourner lights a candle in Shfaram. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 5, 2005 |
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| Mourners carry coffins through the streets of Shfaram. (AP) |
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Mourners heaped flowers and lit candles Friday on a makeshift altar fashioned from window frames ripped from the bus where an AWOL Jewish IDF soldier opposed to Israel's impending Gaza Strip pullout shot dead four Israeli Arabs.
The soldier, 19-year-old Eden Natan-Zada, opened fire on the bus in the northern Arab-Druze town of Shfaram on Thursday, killing the driver and three passengers. There were 13 wounded, although about half of these were injured by blows and objects thrown by an enraged Arab mob which beat the shooter to death and prevented police from removing his body from the bus for hours.
Thousands of police officers fanned out across northern Israel and Jerusalem on Friday to prevent possible rioting as a grieving and angry Arab community prepared to bury the four victims later in the day.
Natan-Zada's body was being held in a morgue after the military, his hometown of Rishon Lezion and the settlement in Samaria which he frequented refused to bury him. Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Natan-Zada would not be buried in an IDF cemetery or given a military funeral.
In Shfaram, townspeople lit hundreds of candles and placed hundreds of flowers on the impromptu altar. Melted candle wax seeped onto high-heeled shoes, flip-flops, door handles, seat frames and other objects taken from the bus.
A fire burning in a small drum stood at the head of the altar. Behind it, children and adults held up banners in Hebrew and Arabic reading, "We are fed up with racism," "Search me, I'm an Arab," and "Bring those who allow racism to justice."
For months, Israeli security has been warning that extremists might try to sabotage the mid-August pullout from Gaza and four small northern West Bank settlements by attacking Arabs and diverting forces.
Natan-Zada's father said his son deserted his army unit after he was ordered to help prepare for the pullout, and moved to the West Bank settlement of Tapuah.
Wearing the skullcap, beard and sidelocks of an ultra-Orthodox Jew, Natan-Zada boarded the bus bound for Shfaram, a city of 35,000 Muslims, Christians and Druze, in a nearby northern town.
When the bus entered a Shfaram neighborhood, he opened fire on the driver, killing him instantly, witnesses said. Other reports said that an argument had broken out on the bus before the shooting.
The bus rolled on for 50 meters (yards), until it hit a parked car and ground to a halt in front of a grocery store. Natan-Zada continued shooting inside the bus, emptying a magazine. When he tried reloading, he was tackled and disarmed.
Several people were involved in stopping the attack, including Husam Elian, a former soldier from Shfaram who was driving in a car directly behind the bus.
"I was driving when I heard rapid gunfire," Elian said. "I pulled out my gun, because I am a security guard, and went toward the bus. Someone told me there was a man, an Israeli soldier, with a gun, and then I saw him, and he started shooting at me and my neighbors. I saw some friends, and they ran with me onto the bus. And just as he was changing magazines, that's when we grabbed him."
Elian said his friend shouted at Natan-Zada, "Do you know Israeli soldiers could be on this bus?" And Natan-Zada replied, "There are Arabs on this bus."
Elian said he and his friends tried to shield Natan-Zada, but there weren't enough police officers to keep hordes from boarding the bus.
"Getting him out was impossible," he said.
The gunman's body lay on the bus floor, his head covered with a black plastic bag, for hours Thursday night until the crowd was subdued. His shirtless upper torso was heavily bruised and bloodied. One report said that the mob demanded that an Arab doctor verify that the shooter was dead.
The windows of the bus were shattered by bullets and by rocks the mob threw at him. Blood stained bus seats, and rocks covered the vehicle's floor.
Police commissioner Moshe Karadi said forces in the north -- where many Israeli Arabs live -- had been short-handed because many had been diverted to deal with an anti-pullout demonstration in Israel's south this week.
Karadi cautioned that the attack could trigger additional violence. Forces were sent north, and in Jerusalem, ahead of Muslim Sabbath prayers on Friday, police raised their alert to the highest level and assigned SWAT teams and cavalry to the Old City, in anticipation of possible rioting.
Military chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz said he was "definitely worried that people on the fringes are going too far."
"There is no doubt that the unfolding reality, the comments, and the internal debates causes fringe elements to migrate even more toward the fringes," Halutz told Israel Radio.
Three juveniles from Tapuah, aged 15 to 17, were arrested in connection with the deadly attack, Channel 2 TV reported. The settlement is dominated by followers of U.S.-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and the West Bank. Kahane was assassinated by an Arab terrorist in New York in 1990.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon issued a statement condemning the attack as "a despicable act by a bloodthirsty terrorist."
Yitzhak Natan-Zada, 49, the soldier's father, said Thursday that he had asked the army to find his son, who fled from his unit after refusing to participate in the Gaza pullout. The father said he was concerned his son's weapons would fall into the hands of fanatics in Tapuah.
"I wasn't afraid that he would do something. I was afraid of the others," Natan-Zada told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He said he had no indication his son would carry out such an act.
It was the bloodiest such incident in Israel since 1990, when an Israeli opened fire at a bus stop where Palestinians gathered for job placements, killing seven.
In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Jewish settler, entered a holy site in the West Bank city of Hebron and opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 29 -- the bloodiest attack by a Jewish extremist against Palestinians.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called on Israel to prevent Jewish settlers from carrying weapons, "because they (the settlers) are dangerous to the security and peace between the two people." Many Jewish settlers have army-issue guns to protect them from Palestinians.
Israeli Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population of 6.9 million. Though they are full citizens, they have complained of discrimination by successive Israeli governments. Many of their towns and villages lack basic infrastructure, and Arab localities usually top of Israel's unemployment and poverty lists.
The AP contributed to this report.
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