Scene of murders.
Scene of murders.Hezki Ezra

The Jerusalem District Attorney filed charges Monday against Balal Abu Ghanem, 21, of Jabal Mukabar, on three counts of premeditated murder and seven counts of attempted murder, for a heinous terror attack on a Jerusalem bus on October 13.

The attack, which Abu Ghanem carried out with an accomplice, was the most murderous thus far in the current wave of Arab terror that began with the murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin in front of their children, on October 1. 

According to the charge sheet, Abu Ghanem has supported Hamas for several years. On October 12, Bahaa Alian approached him and told him that he has NIS 20,000 with which he intends to buy a handgun in order to murder Jews. The two agreed to carry out a terror attack using the gun and a knife.

The next day, armed with the gun and knife, the two drove ot the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood and boarded the 78 bus. They were the first to get on the bus, and they waited for Jews to climb aboard so that they could murder them. After several minutes' drive, when about a dozen people had gotten on the bus, Abu Ghanem began shooting the passengers to death and Alian stabbed them, in a modus operandi reminiscent of the Har Nof synagogue slayings.

When the gun was out of bullets and the knife's blade had broken in the body of a victim, Richard Lakin Hy"d, one of the two began choking a passenger in order to murder him. Security forces arrived on the scene and killed Alian, while Abu Ghanem was taken alive.

The three people who were murdered are Alon Andrei Govberg Hy"d, Haviv Haim Hy"d and Richard Lakin Hy"d. Three others were seriously wounded and a number of others were traumatized.