Scene of incident
Photo: Ofer Amram
'All the kids are scared of Arabs now'
Truck driver responsible for killing one, injuring 17 during road rampage, hit school fence, stirring panic among elementary schoolchildren. 'All the kids started crying and ran to their parents,' says fourth grade student Liraz
The road rampage of a 22-year old Israeli-Arab from Kfar Kassem ended right outside the entrance to an elementary school. Luckily, no schoolchildren were outside at the time.
"It was just before lunch break, and when we entered the classroom we saw the teacher calling the police. Then we looked outside the window and saw that a bus and truck collided into the school gate.
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"All the parents came to pick up their kids; the teachers told us to calm down and that everything was going to be alright," Liraz added.
Shani, a first grader, was on a break when the incident occurred. "We ate and then we went down to the courtyard and all of the sudden everybody started crying. I said – what happened? And then they told me that there was an accident and I also started to cry.
"I was scared that the Arabs were going to come into the school. We went down to the courtyard with the teacher and then all the parents came to pick us up," she said.
Sixth grade student Linoi said she heard a loud boom and "everybody looked out the window. Everyone was frightened and we weren’t allowed to leave the classroom. Later they asked us to go downstairs to the courtyard and they locked the school building. I was very frightened, I really hope these things never happen again," she noted.
Ravit, the mother of a fourth grader at the school, said her son didn’t want to go to school and stayed home. "My older daughter read on the internet that there will be terror attacks today – and so they didn’t want to go to school. Right by where the truck stopped there is an 'animal corner' next to which the kids plant seeds twice a week. It was a miracle that no one was injured," she said.
Another parent said "my husband works with Arabs and we try to teach our daughter that not all Arabs are bad, but this kind of incident is very traumatic for a little girl and makes it hard for her to understand that there are differences between people.
"Because of what happened, none of the kids at school like Arabs right now, including my daughter, although there are some Arab kids at school," she said.
Yoav Zeitun contributed to thi report
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