Staff Sergeant (Res.) Artium Bolotin from Rishon Lezion was the last soldier to talk to Jewish terrorist Eden Natan Zada, who gunned down four Israeli Arabs from Shfaram
on a bus on Thursday.
Natan Zada had deserted his military duty earlier in the year in protest of Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank, set to begin next week.
“Suddenly, in the middle of guard duty, he decided he had enough and went to his room to collect his belongings, and simply left,” Bolotin told Ynet, adding that Zada left the base with a rifle and ammunition.
| Were there signs? |
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| Killer's chilling yearbook prophecy / By Raanan Ben-Zur and Ynetnews |
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Terrorist Eden Natan Zada portrayed in high school yearbook drawing holding gun with finger on the trigger; earlier, father of youngster detained in connection with attack says Zada was a righteous man, like Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein |
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“He was very eager to run away, and was constantly afraid that the commanding officers would find him and convince him to return,” he said.
Zada spoke for over an hour about the pullout on his last shift guarding the entrance to a military training camp, he said.
“He said he was not able to be in the army anymore,” Bolotin said. “He was annoyed to be in a unit would be part of the forces participating in the (pullout) operation.”
'Jews don't expel Jews'
Bolotin said he tried to persuade Zada to stay, and explained to him that he faced jail time for walking away.
“He said that he didn’t care, because he was not afraid of prison, he had already been there,” Bolotin said.
At about 11:00 a.m. (4 a.m. EDT) Zada asked a friend to cover for him for a few minutes and went to his room to gather his belongings.
“I was surprised that he left like that, I immediately informed the operations room and his commander, who ran out to look for him,” he said. “But the soldier had completely disappeared.”
Minutes after he left, Bolotin opened the vehicle registration book and was surprised to see that Zada had written a letter to his commanding officer explaining his reasons for deserting his post.
Zada also scribbled, “Jews don't expel Jews” on a separate piece of paper he had torn from the book.
Bolotin received a phone call Monday from one of his previous commanders requesting details regarding the incident during their shift together. It was then that Bolotin realized he was the last soldier to talk to Zada before the Shfaram attack on Thursday.
“In retrospect, it's hard to say whether there were signs he would do something so drastic,” Bolotin said. “He was really stressed and acted relatively strange for a soldier, but I never thought he was capable of doing something like that.”
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