Hebrew University
Hebrew UniversityFlash 90

Arab men threw Molotov cocktails at a bus on Thursday near the Hebrew University campus in French Hill in northern Jerusalem. The bus sustained damage, but the makeshift bombs failed to break the windows and the dozens of passengers escaped without injury.

Driver Alon said the Molotov cocktails ignited on impact. “It’s a miracle that they did not burn the bus,” he told Yediot Aharonot.

The passengers on the bus were members of a family who had just celebrated a bar mitzvah, he said. They were terrified, Alon recalled, “We were afraid we would die.”

Itai Gotler, head of the Student Union at Hebrew University-French Hill, warned that the attack “is yet another proof that [terrorist] murder on the campus area is just a matter of time.” Hebrew University students have complained that local Arabs routinely harass them.

Hebrew University has been the site of terrorism before, most notably in the bombing in 2002 of one of the school’s cafeterias. Nine people were murdered in the attack. A terrorist involved in the bombing was recently released in the terrorist exchange deal that freed Gilad Shalit..

Police responded to Thursday’s firebombing, but have yet to apprehend suspects.

A second firebomb attack was carried out Thursday night near the city of Beitar Illit, a short distance from Jerusalem. Attackers targeted an Israeli bus, but failed to cause injury or damage.

The day before, a groom about to get married was wounded in a rock attack as he went to pray at his grandfatherf's grave at Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives cemetery.