Sarah Vettori
Sarah VettoriBeilinson hospital spokesperson

The survivor of a deadly terrorist attack in an Israeli industrial zone in Samaria earlier this week said her life was saved in part by an Arab worker who came to her aid shortly after she had been shot.

Fifty-four-year-old Sarah Vettori, one of the victims of this Sunday’s terrorist attack on an office in the Barkan industrial zone in Samaria, credited her survival to the assistance of a Palestinian Authority resident employed in Barkan at a warehouse.

During the attack the terrorist, 23-year-old Ashraf Naalwa from the town of Shweika near the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Tulkarem in Samaria, entered the offices of the Alon recycling company in Barkan while carrying an M-16 assault rifle.

Naalwa took two employees of the Alon facility captive, ordering an Arab worker to bind their hands with zip ties. The terrorist then shot and fatally wounded the two employees, who were identified as 28-year-old Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel of Rosh Ha’ayin, and 35-year-old Rishon Letzion resident Ziv Hajbi.

During the attack, Vettori was also shot by the terrorist but managed to escape and hide under an office table.

“The terrorist was standing in front of me and shot me,” Vettori recalled. “As he was shooting me, I ran away back to the office and I hid underneath a table. I put my hand over the wound and saw that it was bleeding. All I could think about was how I needed to breathe, and that everything would be alright. Then I heard four or five more loud shots and I huddled under the table.”

Naalwa followed Vettori into her office, but failed to find her as he searched the room.

“I saw that he came back to the office, and I saw his legs, his jeans, and his sneakers. But after a second he was gone and I was just in shock.”

In an interview with Yediot Ahronot, Vettori said an Arab worker named Basel helped her stop the bleeding, and kept her conscious until emergency medical teams evacuated her to the hospital.

"One is a murderer and the other one saves lives," Vettori said. “Basel saved my life.”

"I was vaguely conscious and Basel, who ran into the office where I was hiding, pulled me under the table and reassured me when he said ‘My dear, my dear.' He stroked my face in an attempt to keep me conscious until the ambulance arrived.”

After she was evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Basel called Vettori to check up on her, and to express his sadness at what had happened. Vettori noted that Basel had been hospitalized at a Palestinian Authority hospital for shock.

Vettori was released from Beilinson on Monday.