Scene of attack in West Bank
Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Terrorist threw acid in my eyes and yelled Allahu Akbar, recalls victim
Moshe Claude Kamoun says larger attack prevented by timing; 'girls sustained burns all over bodies,' says uncle after discharge from hospital.
"I was on my way back from work. I was hitching a ride when an Arab came and threw something in my eyes. He pursued me while screaming 'Allahu Akbar' but I escaped," recalled Moshe Claude Kamoun, one of the victims of Friday's terror attack
in the West Bank.
Shaharna first doused an unsuspecting family in a vehicle – the mother, her three daughters, and her niece were wounded – before assaulting two other bystanders. An armed passerby then shot and neutralized the assailant.
"In these moments, you cannot think," said Kamoun, from his bed at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
Seven Israelis were wounded in the attack which occurred around noon in the Gush Etzion area. A Palestinian source told Ynet that the terrorist is Jamal Shaharna from the village of Nahalin located near Bethlehem.
Victim's car at intersection (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Kamoun, a 43-year-old Israeli who works as a transportation escort in Gush Etzion, said the children he was escorting that day had disembarked a bus a mere five minutes before the incident – preventing a much larger incident.
Moshe Claude Kamoun (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
With his eyes tearing in the area where he was hit with the acid, Kamoun said he was lucky, "thank God he did not manage to hurt me worse. The doctors say the cornea was not burned and I will be able to see. I feared I would lose my sight."
"I escaped from (the attacker) and then thought that the family had been left behind in the car so I began to run back, then I heard the gunfire, but I didn't see anything myself," Kamoun added.
The mother and her four family members were released from Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem in the early evening hours. After their discharge, she said: "The girls have suffered a traumatic event; everything's fine."
Shaul Goldstein, the mother's brother, said his sister had pulled over for a hitchhiker at the intersection when the terrorist attacked them, dousing them and the hitchhiker with acid. "The window was open so he shoved the bottle into the vehicle and spilled it on everyone who was in the car."
Mother and three daughters wounded in attack (Photo: Ido Erez)
"The girls sustained burns all over their bodies. The girls have been through an awful trauma and were very afraid, but to our fortune the intersection was very crowded on Shabbat eve and the many Jews who were in the area arrived to help them," he added.
Shaharna has a history of nationalistically-motivated offenses, for which he had been convicted in the past after participating in violent riots against IDF forces. A senior military source from Central Command said the terrorist had taken advantage of the fact an Israeli stopped her vehicle for a haredi man standing near him to douse them with acid.
Scene of attack in West Bank (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
According to the source, the haredi man and another Israeli began a foot pursuit after the terrorist. Another man, who was driving southbound, stopped his vehicle after spotting a terrorist wielding a screwdriver, and fired two shots at his lower limbs, neutralizing the assailant.
Given the concerns over an escalation on the ground because of the week's events in the West Bank, the senior source added that due to the reinforced operations undertaken by the IDF in the territory, "we are in a better place than we expected."
Speaking of the security cooperation with Palestinian Authority forces, the source said "the coordination in the West Bank continues, primarily on matters relating to anti-terror operations and Hamas."
Noam (Dabul) Dvir and Yoav Zitun contributed to this report.
