Avraham Schertzman, 12, of Beitar Illit, always seems to be in the right place at the right time - and has helped thwart several possible terrorist attempts. Asked if he\'s a hero, he responded simply, \"Baruch Hashem [the equivalent of \'Thank G-d\'].\" His most recent save occurred yesterday. He told Arutz-7\'s Yosef Zalmanson what happened:
\"I was playing outside with my remote-control car when I looked up at the hill of Nahlin (an Arab village adjacent to Beitar) and saw some Arabs pointing in our direction. Then I saw them do something, then our fence started burning, and they started running away. I realized that it was a tire burning... I had my cell phone on me, so I right away called 102 [the fire department] and then I called the \'moked\' [the local emergency center]. Someone from the \'moked\' arrived right away, and shot towards them... We were able to see that the tire they were burning had bags of gunpowder in it which [could have caused a large explosion]...
\"Last week, on Lag BaOmer, it was after midnight and we were collecting more wood for our fire. We put up a [make-shift] fence around the area so that no one would go in, but some kids didn\'t listen, and a very large piece of wood ending up falling on top of a 7-year-old girl. She was bleeding badly... There were some kids older than me there, but no one knew what to do, and some of them panicked - but I just took out my cell phone and called the ambulance service (101) and within one minute (we have a lot of ambulances around here) it arrived and took her for treatment. It turned out that she needed stitches... Her parents later called to thank me...
\"OK, now I\'ll tell you what happened in Gilo about three months ago. I go to school there, and I was getting off the bus with my teacher when we saw an Arab carrying a rifle and two suitcases. My teacher went up and asked him if they were his, and he answered him in Arabic. I was a little further away, and I right away called the police. When the Arab saw me calling, he ran away down the hill towards Beit Jala; when the police came, he was already gone...
\"About a month ago, on Pesach, my friend and I were walking around looking through the binoculars that my father got me. It was about 10 PM, and suddenly we saw a car come from Nahlin towards Beitar, and it stopped in the middle and turned its lights off. Then we saw four Arabs get out of the car, and two of them then got back in. Again, I called the \'moked,\' but while I was calling I saw the two Arabs crawl under a fence into Beitar. It wasn\'t very close to houses, but close to the patrol road... The \'moked\' guy came, but the car wasn\'t there anymore; he got some people to start looking around, and sure enough, one of the patrols was later able to find the two Arabs and catch them...\"
\"Is that all?\" Zalmanson asked. \"Yes,\" Avraham answered, but then he remembered something else: \"Oh yeah, my sister was on the #25 bus that was attacked [last November] in French Hill...\"
\"I was playing outside with my remote-control car when I looked up at the hill of Nahlin (an Arab village adjacent to Beitar) and saw some Arabs pointing in our direction. Then I saw them do something, then our fence started burning, and they started running away. I realized that it was a tire burning... I had my cell phone on me, so I right away called 102 [the fire department] and then I called the \'moked\' [the local emergency center]. Someone from the \'moked\' arrived right away, and shot towards them... We were able to see that the tire they were burning had bags of gunpowder in it which [could have caused a large explosion]...
\"Last week, on Lag BaOmer, it was after midnight and we were collecting more wood for our fire. We put up a [make-shift] fence around the area so that no one would go in, but some kids didn\'t listen, and a very large piece of wood ending up falling on top of a 7-year-old girl. She was bleeding badly... There were some kids older than me there, but no one knew what to do, and some of them panicked - but I just took out my cell phone and called the ambulance service (101) and within one minute (we have a lot of ambulances around here) it arrived and took her for treatment. It turned out that she needed stitches... Her parents later called to thank me...
\"OK, now I\'ll tell you what happened in Gilo about three months ago. I go to school there, and I was getting off the bus with my teacher when we saw an Arab carrying a rifle and two suitcases. My teacher went up and asked him if they were his, and he answered him in Arabic. I was a little further away, and I right away called the police. When the Arab saw me calling, he ran away down the hill towards Beit Jala; when the police came, he was already gone...
\"About a month ago, on Pesach, my friend and I were walking around looking through the binoculars that my father got me. It was about 10 PM, and suddenly we saw a car come from Nahlin towards Beitar, and it stopped in the middle and turned its lights off. Then we saw four Arabs get out of the car, and two of them then got back in. Again, I called the \'moked,\' but while I was calling I saw the two Arabs crawl under a fence into Beitar. It wasn\'t very close to houses, but close to the patrol road... The \'moked\' guy came, but the car wasn\'t there anymore; he got some people to start looking around, and sure enough, one of the patrols was later able to find the two Arabs and catch them...\"
\"Is that all?\" Zalmanson asked. \"Yes,\" Avraham answered, but then he remembered something else: \"Oh yeah, my sister was on the #25 bus that was attacked [last November] in French Hill...\"