It was 10:54 a.m. when Shilat Elkayam, a mother of three and pregnant, who works in design for a living, made her way towards the Gitti Avishar intersection, just a few kilometers from the city of Ariel. A four-lane road, the sun in the center of the sky, a standard day. Suddenly, another vehicle hit her car, And the shocked sheriff pulled over and removed her seat belt, unable to believe that she was involved in a car accident. Little did she know that within seconds she would be involved in a much bigger nightmare than a routine accident.
"That morning I had a meeting and the SLT had all kinds of arrangements," says her husband, Hananal Elkayam, CEO of the Itamar settlement.
"She dropped me off at the Shomron Regional Council and went about her business. At the end of the meeting she was supposed to pick me up but around 11:00 I suddenly received a call from an unknown number. I rejected the call but after three times I realized that there was an incident here. When I answered a woman shouted at me 'Your wife was robbed Car'. My token fell and I ran out."
The woman who called Hananal brought Shilat to the entrance of the council, a very short distance from the scene of the incident, and from there the couple boarded an ambulance. Although Shilat was only slightly injured, the fact that she was five months pregnant made the incident much more complex.
Driving on the road turned into roulette, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"It's a crazy event, there's nothing to say. A woman is pregnant, in the fifth month. We had quite a bit of concern about this. We quickly went to the hospital in an ambulance and with God's help we believed it would be alright," says Hananal.
On his way to the hospital he learned about what happened in those seconds.
"They entered the vehicle from the back, it turns out that this is a well-known trick. My wife stopped for a second to understand what was going on, and even before she opened the door, they forced it open and threw her out. According to the Ituran, the whole incident took seconds, not minutes. At 10:54 the vehicle drove up The road where we were robbed and at 10:58 the location of the vehicle was in the nearby village of Bidya, it was very fast. She was thrown onto the road, and she was injured in her knees, and of course also mentally.
"The incident is not over for us. At the beginning of the week we were in the hospital, because she is still in pain. Pain of mind and body in a mix. It is not easy. My wife is a hero and with God's help she will overcome everything. As a husband it is indeed not easy, that you are not there at the event to help or To make it end differently. Obviously, questions arise - why wasn't I there, what would have happened if I had been at the event. It's easy, what goes through her mind."
Easy escape routes
Shilat's story is not the only one of its kind, far from it. Data provided by the police to "Israel this week" shows that almost every week there is an incident of violent robbery in Judea and Samaria. In the first seven months of 2022, 32 robbery cases took place, 12 of which were characterized by severe violence, that is compared to 31 in the same period last year. 26 of these robberies were committed on Route 55, the road that leads from Kfar Saba towards the Horns of Samaria and Kedomim, and on Route 505, which parallels Route 5, in the area of the village of Bidya. Wild West in the heart of Samaria.
The police say that there are several methods used by the robbers.
The first, and the easiest, is the robbery of Israelis who enter territories under Palestinian control, to buy tomatoes or wash their cars.
This is a problematic event because the police have a real problem entering these areas to rescue the victim, and of course there is a suspicion of hostile sabotage activity.
The second method is robbery in Basto: on the sides of the road in the West Bank, many Palestinians sell various products, such as vegetables, fruits and eggs. Many times the Israelis leave their vehicles running while they go down to buy one or another product, and find themselves without the car.
The police, by the way, see such an incident as very problematic, because the grave fear is that the Israeli citizen will try to hang himself from the vehicle and pay with his life.
The third method, and the most problematic, is on the day of an accident, as was the case with Shilat Elkayam, and then violently hijacking the car.
"This is a very problematic criminal event, because it involves criminals who have extreme courage and drivers who can try to react and jump on the vehicle, which can end in casualties," says Deputy Superintendent Erez Amoyel, commander of the Ariel station, "These are very explosive events, certainly in the .
The bandits choose the roads near Ariel because within seconds they are in areas A and B, under Palestinian control.
A criminal who commits a robbery on the Nabi Elias bypass road (number 55) is found within seconds in Kalkilia, and I can't make a hot pursuit there."
"Suddenly the road is over for me"
"I'm lucky to be alive. I have no idea how I got out of this. I saw the angel of death smiling in front of my face, my whole family in front of my eyes. I don't know how I escaped," recalls Yaakov Attia, a taxi driver from Rishon Lezion, of the incident in which he found himself in the suburbs of a Palestinian city in real danger to his life.
Last March, just before Purim, Atiya picked up three young Arabs in Kfar Saba on their way to Tayba.
It was a relatively routine trip.
"We arrived in Tayba and then one of the passengers asked me to continue to the garage, which he said was ten minutes from the place, to pick up his car. I agreed and he directed me. In retrospect, it became clear to me that he had taken me into the authority's territory.
"Suddenly I see that the road is over for me, and then the passenger sitting behind me choked me and pinned me to the seat, and the one on my right pinned a screwdriver to my neck, telling me 'shut up, or you'll die. You're in the territories and you'll die.'" Instinctively I punched him in the face and dropped the screwdriver , he punched me back, I realized that my life was in danger and I ran away from the vehicle."
The three passengers, who had corona masks on their faces and hooded hats on their heads so that he wouldn't recognize them, surrounded him, and one of them tried to stab him again with the screwdriver, but his hand got stuck in the frame of the car door.
"All three of them beat me. One bit me and I had to let go of the keys. Somehow I managed to escape from them. I started screaming 'Save, save,' and then someone came out of a building in an orchard, saw me with torn clothes, told me not to be afraid, and gave me the phone to call the police The problem was that it was Area A, under Palestinian control, and they couldn't send a car. In the end, the man who met me took me outside, to the checkpoint. I received my life from the Holy One, blessed be He, as a gift."
That almost random bite helped in a breakthrough on the part of the police, and the suspect of stealing the car was arrested due to the DNA sample. The trial against him is still ongoing.
The police explain that the criminals deliberately choose weak people whom they can deal with without fear - adults or women - and do not enter into confrontations, for example with armed settlers.
"The robbers come unarmed, because a Palestinian criminal knows what it means to carry weapons in such an event. They are probably afraid of a situation in which a settler will open fire on them and therefore look for easy prey, a weakened population. There is no such thing as a robbery of a 40-year-old man, because he might be Armed. However, it must be said that it cannot be ruled out that such an event would not be nationalistic, since the thread is very thin," says Amoyel.
To overcome the phenomenon, the police work in a variety of ways, some of which are classified.
Amoyel: "We have intelligence measures, special units, covert operations and other tools that should not be detailed. We have improved in deciphering the robberies, but there is no way to stop it 100 percent. To stop these crimes, we need, among other things, legislative changes, because some of them return through a revolving door "That".
Police data shows that since the beginning of the year, 13 indictments have been filed against defendants in robbery incidents.
30 detainees have been registered since the beginning of the year, ten of whom are detained until the end of the proceedings against them.
Hananal Elkayam believes that the state has no interest in acting against the criminals.
"The State of Israel does not want to deal with car theft incidents, there are economic interests here that benefit it. Thousands of cars are stolen every year, and new ones are purchased in their place. The insurance companies also benefit because the premiums have gone up and insure millions more cars. It's economic."
However, Elkayim clarifies that he and his wife will continue to drive on Yosh roads. "We refuse to surrender to terrorism, but someone has to pick up the gauntlet.
This is part of their attempts to deprive us of our ancestral land, but they did not learn that when they torture it, it will multiply and break out, the settlement will continue to prosper and flourish.
Of course we will work to get the proper compensation so they can be taken care of, but we do not agree to surrender.
Jews must not be able to drive safely on the road in the Land of Israel."
"The rocks are a living weapon"
"When you hit a rock while driving, you freeze on the spot," recalls Elkana Tsanani, a bus driver for the Egged Transport company who regularly drives in Judea and Samaria.
"Movies run through your head. You calm down the frightened passengers, outwardly showing that you have control over the event, but inside you are all butter. If there are children on the bus at all, it turns into a traumatic nightmare. The children start screaming and crying, a horror movie on the bus. You just want to run away , but you have nowhere to go."
Buses are considered relatively safe means of transportation.
The drivers are highly experienced, many of them are careful and well aware of the responsibilities in their hands, but in the wild west called Judea and Samaria, even the safest vehicle becomes a target for terrorism, which for some reason is called "popular" and which may become a death trap.
If you thought that the solution to the robberies in Yosh was to travel on the public buses, then this is not an ideal solution. This is the target of the terrorists, who know for sure that this is an Israeli vehicle and that they are able to terrorize it.
"We are used to these events, but for those who are not used to it, it is terrible," Elkana says.
"We have a driver who was hit by a barrage of stones two months ago and lost control. Fortunately, he got stuck in a guardrail that was between the lanes. Miraculously, the bus did not overturn, partly because it was traveling at low speed. If it had overturned, it would have been a disaster - 50 to 60 casualties, a bus full of ultra-Orthodox To the limit. The driver is an Arab, a real hero. He was covered in cuts from shards of glass from the windshield. He could have frozen in place and then hit more rocks or lost control of the bus completely, but he went as far as he could. It's not obvious, a lot of drivers freeze In a situation like this. You have to understand that everything happens in seconds. If you don't catch yourself in your hands, you can end your life and that of other passengers."
Terrorism against buses, as far as stone-throwing is concerned, is divided into two: the "classic" stone-throwing, meaning a terrorist standing in a high place and throwing stones, and the much more sophisticated and dangerous method - rock-throwing, sometimes chiseled, from a moving car.
In recent months, a terrorist squad in a luxury BMW car has been roaming the roads of Yosh. They would drive on Route 60, the main road of Judea and Samaria, which crosses it from south to north, looking for buses of Israeli companies. When they would reach the bus, they would throw a heavy rock at it, hitting it. , and fleeing the scene. For a long period of time they carried out these attacks, until the IDF tracked them down and caught them.
"My friend, Yehuda, kidnapped a block from this squad. It's insanely dangerous and it's only a matter of time before it ends in disaster," Elkana says in frustration.
"In my opinion, every time an event like this does not end in disaster, it is a miracle, there is a hand of God here. The bus is traveling at a speed of 80 km/h and the car in front of it at 100 km/h. There is no way that the stone will stop in a glass windshield. It is like a bullet, a live weapon, and you look I have no doubt that a disaster will happen in the end and only then will it be dealt with. Everything here is written in blood, and it is sad that such a situation is reached."
Russian roulette
The phenomenon of throwing stones at buses is not new, and for many years the terrorists have targeted the large vehicles that transport crowds, and especially those that are well identified as Israeli.
The increase in the quality of life in the West Bank, for Israelis and Palestinians alike, along with the fact that many Israeli Arabs drive on the roads, makes it difficult for the terrorists to identify which vehicles are driving on the roads. Buses are a popular target because it is very clear which side they belong to. From Dora to Jenin , from Kalkilia to Tubas, terrorists are operating with the aim of damaging the buses.
"I hit rocks several times on the way down towards Ma'ale Adumim," says Eliran Nehemiah, also a driver for Egged Transport.
"It's a fear of death. Sometimes I look up, towards the mountain to my right, to see if there is anyone suspicious in the lookout who is going to throw stones. I have passengers for trial purposes, who sit only on the left side of the bus, because the right side is the one that grabs stones. It's a very feeling Scary, especially as a bus driver who has responsibility for passengers. Alone it's easier, at most you get hit. But when you have passengers - old people, children, it's a trauma. People scream, fall over with panic. It's like Russian roulette. Sometimes a week or two of Silence and suddenly a boom."
From the partial data provided to us by the "Employees' Power" organization and the "Electra Afikim Transport 2021" company, regarding the throwing of stones at buses in the year since June 2021, a difficult picture emerges.
In the area of Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Zeev, about 100 attacks took place during this period, in Gush Etzion 81 attacks and in Hizma 75 attacks.
This is only a part of what is happening on Yosh roads. Thus, from Rescue Without Borders Yosh reported, for example, last Thursday that a bus was rammed on Route 465 near Umm Tzafa, and the day before that a massive stone was thrown at a bus and vehicles in the area of the Beit Anon intersection north of Kiryat Four.
A bus windshield is shattered after a barrage of stones, photo: Power for Workers organization
Among other things, a recently published document shows a terrorist running towards an Israeli bus moving on Alon Road and throwing a block into it.
This time it is an injury to the side of the bus so that this "only" caused fear, but in other cases the injury is to the windshield, and when it comes to a bus that is not bulletproof - it is literally life threatening, because the block may penetrate into the bus and even injure the driver.
"As a workers' organization that believes in the rights of drivers, we found ourselves over the past year dealing with the protection of human life," says Tamar Ohana, head of the transportation branch at the "Power for Workers" organization.
"We are seeing a constant and frightening increase in violence against drivers. Some of this violence manifests itself in throwing stones at buses. Unfortunately, some drivers have even been hospitalized as a result. For a long time, the lack of hand of the relevant authorities forced us to accept responsibility and shut down disaster-prone lines. We received support for this from the passengers. Their lives and the lives of the drivers come first."
After a long struggle, a dialogue was established between the public transportation companies, the Ministry of Internal Security and the Ministry of Transportation, and recently, on the initiative of the Minister of Internal Security, Amr Bar-Lev, a bridge was built near the Naomi Shemer Bridge, which is supposed to prevent the throwing of stones on the Ma'ale Adumim-Jerusalem road.
But this is a drop in the ocean, and there is no reason to really believe that throwing stones at the buses will stop.
"A driver who is troubled by the question of where the stone will come from is an unfocused driver. Passengers should not avoid traveling on the right side of the bus for fear of stones. We will continue to lead the fight for safe travel on buses," says Ohana.
Eliran Nehemiah: "It's a matter of time before a driver hits a rock in the head and there will be a disaster. Someone must change this equation and make sure that the buses are safe. This is a clear and significant danger to life."
"The throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at buses throughout Judea and Samaria has become an ever-expanding scourge," affirms Eliyahu Liebman, head of the Kiryat Arba Council, "Unfortunately, the deterrence system of the security forces is not sufficient due to a lack of governance. There is very little regard for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails in general and certainly on buses and cars. We have already seen disasters caused by throwing stones at cars and buses. I call on the security system to step into the thick of the beam and make the punishment tougher."
The IDF takes seriously the phenomenon of stone throwing in general, and the phenomenon of throwing stones from passing cars in particular, and does not treat it as popular terrorism or a prank by young people. With every report of stone throwing from a moving vehicle, a "hot hammer" procedure is immediately declared - that is, an attack - and the forces Going in pursuit of the terrorists Just last week such a squad was arrested in the Ephraim Brigade area after extensive intelligence work.
"The IDF is putting a lot of effort into eradicating the stone-throwing cases in the area and is working to close the circle with the suspects," the IDF spokesperson emphasizes, "The fighters are deployed in the area according to the assessment of the situation and use a variety of measures in accordance with the instructions to open fire against those who try to harm the security of the citizens. "L will continue to act against incidents of this type, both in open and hidden activity while strengthening the security of citizens."
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