Six months passed between the day Gilad, a resident of Lod, escaped a terrorist attack and the day the police finally recognized him as a victim of terrorism. The police insisted that the attack was criminal in nature in spite of the evidence.
Gilad shared his story with Arutz Sheva.
"It was on Friday, on the eve of Sukkot. I was in the Jerusalem area, and I drove into an area that I was less familiar with. I bought the four species [for the Sukkot holiday), and arrived in the Binyamin region. I was not sure that this area is dangerous. Jews travel there, but they told me that there are hours that are dangerous [to travel there]."
"I tried to get to the Lod area. There was a traffic jam and the traffic wasn't moving. There were many Arabs around. I was a bit more alert. I came to the outskirts of an urban area, with shops all around me, and a boy around the age of 11 was trying to sell something. The window was closed. I didn't call to him, but he 'checked me out' and didn't leave my car. This seemed weird to me. I moved up 30-40 centimeters and he moved up with me. I had a commando knife with me, and I knew where it was," he said.
Gilad saw the boy signal to someone who came, opened the door, and began to speak in Arabic. "He still didn't realize that I was a Jew. From his angle it was impossible to see my skullcap since I'm somewhat taller. I said to him, 'What?' And at that moment everything changed. Until then I had been talking with a human being, but starting from that moment he was a wild animal. He went wild and pushed open the door. I grabbed the knife and went outside. He flinched. He circled the car on the other hand, opened the door and took a bag from it."
"At that point everyone recognized that I was a Jew, There was very little room to get out of the jam. I managed to drive about 150 meters away when I heard a loud 'boom.' Someone had thrown a large block at the back door. I got 100-150 meters further. I was confused and tried to get back to the traffic, and when I got back I found the way out."
When he made it home, Gilad immediately contacted the police to report the incident. "I was told to go to the police station, but when I went to the Lod police station, they told me to go to Binyamin because only they have the authority to recognize that kind of incident in their area as terrorism. But there a policeman told me that there was a chance that they would say it was criminal. How can someone define such a thing as criminal?"
Gilad's case received virtually no attention for months afterwards until a few days before he shared his story on Kol Yisrael radio. He explained that prior to the interview the police told him to submit an appeal, only to reject the appeal afterwards. "After the interview, I again no longer received any correspondence [from the police]."
With the help of attorney Moshe Yado of the Honenu legal organization, Gilad was finally able to convince the police to move the case along, until the incident was finally recognized as an act of terror.
"Attorney Yado expended a lot of effort and energy. He sent more and more letters, and apparently one of them reached someone who understood that there is something very wrong here."