Shoham Adani, Jewish woman who was the victim of a Palestinian Authority Muslim terror attack earlier this week, told her story and said she was "a step away from being a newspaper headline."
"On Thursday night I was almost murdered in a terror attack," she wrote. "Nothing that happened that day prepared me for the moment when I would be fighting for my life. I started the morning at work, helping residents with special needs. I took advantage of the sunny weather to walk with my partner, and in the evening I went to see a movie with friends from my village. I left happy, excited, fulfilled from the day, and very calm. It was a routine trip from Jerusalem to Pnei Kedem, to the student village where I live, and many people make this trip daily."
"It was a quarter to 11 at night and I crossed Arab Tekoa. I had managed to see soldiers standing at the gas station in the center of the village, and I wondered if I could stop worrying and drive with confidence. It could be that that thought prepared me for what was to come. What separated me from the soldiers was a single bend in the road. Just one. I came out of the bend and started to drive towards the village, when I noticed movement on the right side of the road. From that moment, it took about three seconds.
"Count three seconds in your head.
"In those seconds I noticed three masked barbaric people running crazily to the road and taking position. I saw rocks ready in their hands. It's amazing how many thoughts run through your head at that moment, your body goes into emergency mode. I felt the terror, the helplessness, the size of the rocks, the understanding that it could be that my life would end that second, that from these rocks I couldn't run away. I managed to honk at them, hoping they would think I was a Palestinian, screamed for my life, bent over, and pressed the gas pedal.
"A second afterwards I heard horrific booms and I felt the glass break over me and the wind blowing through the windshield, and it was just me and the screams in an enemy village. It took another second for me to lift my head and look at all the glass that covered me, and understand that I am in a battle for my life, that I wasn't harmed and I need to recover.
"The moment I left the village I tried calling the police, with no luck. The next call was to Uriya, my partner, I didn't remember the hotline's number during those seconds but I knew he would know what to do, but that call wasn't answered either. The third call was to a friend who I knew was just behind me on the road, and I wanted to warn him. That also wasn't answered. I decided to put the phone aside and concentrate on the winding road until I reached the next checkpoint, which was two minutes away. I mostly remember the silence and how my racing heart broke the silence, and my thoughts.... I kept trying to honk and warn other cars with Israeli license plates to be careful.
"I saw the checkpoint and I honked for my life. I stopped next to it, the soldiers came closer to me, and I took another few seconds to write in the town WhatsApp group that they are throwing stones near Tekoa and that my vehicle was damaged. The soldiers opened the door, helped me get out, and I quickly told them what had happened so that they could send forces there.
"Every time I close my eyes I am taken back to those moments, when I saw the terrorists before they harmed me. Every interrogation I have been through sent me into severe respiratory difficulties, hysterical sobs, an irregular heartbeat, and most of all, the horrific understanding that the path the rock took should not have allowed me to remain alive. 100%."
Adani added: "Anyone who knows me knows that I am a woman of peace, and I try to act with gentleness and respect towards others....but there is no question that something has cracked inside of me. I met violence which has no words, which has no forgiveness. I met terrorists."
"There can be no tolerance for such violence," she said, emphasizing that "throwing rocks is a terror attack, it's an attempted murder."
"A rock is a weapon, there is no question. We're not talking about spontaneous rock-throwing by a bored kid walking home from school. There's no question that that is also dangerous, but on Thursday night there were terrorists waiting, squatting at the side of the road to murder me.
"I didn't try to harm them, I just wanted to get home in peace. They tried to harm everyone's peace, and therefore, such wild ones have no right to walk free."
Thanking G-d for the miracle, Adani concluded: "I was a step away from being a horrific newspaper headline. This is my life, and that of all residents of Judea and Samaria. It's simply Russian roulette."