Rabbi Yisrael Elias, a Yeshiva student from the Neve Yaakov neighborhood, narrowly escaped the deadly shooting attack at the Ramat Junction in Jerusalem yesterday, in which six people were murdered.
In an interview with Kol Chai radio, he described the terrifying moment when a bullet entered his car, passing just inches from his head.
"Hashem protected me with miracles," said Elias. He was driving as usual from his home to the Yeshiva in Givat Shaul via Begin Road when he encountered a heavy traffic jam at the Ramat Junction. "It took me an hour and twenty minutes to get there; it was unusually long."
Just moments after passing the busy bus station, he heard gunshots. "I instinctively stopped the car; I don't know why, instead of running," he recalled. When he got out of the car, he saw a bald terrorist, dressed in jeans, about 15 meters away, shooting at people.
"He just shot one person, then another, moving between people as if it were a game," he described in shock. In the critical seconds, when he returned to his car, the terrorist noticed him and shot at him.
"I sat in the seat and heard a boom. The bullet went through the rear windshield, passing right above my head," Elias recounted. "If I had turned my head to look back, the bullet would have hit me directly. It was a matter of centimeters."
He speculated that the terrorist might have suspected he was armed or intended to neutralize him. "I was right in front of the bus, two cars away from the massacre."
Elias, who clearly remembers the Neve Yaakov attack from several years ago, shared his feelings of helplessness. "I tried twice to get a gun license, but it didn’t work because of bureaucracy," he said. "I saw a 15-year-old boy shot beside me when he tried to hitchhike. I hesitated to pick him up but didn’t."
"Seeing people fall, their lives ending, and you can do nothing—it's terribly frustrating," he added.
With tears, Elias shared his feelings of gratitude: "Hashem didn’t want seven more orphans and a widow." He emphasized that the attack at the busy bus station could have ended in a much greater tragedy. "Two terrorists with Carlo rifles shot continuously for three minutes. It's a miracle there weren’t more victims."