"They are simply animals. They walk around freely amongst us, but if we make a mistake and come to their areas, it could cost us our lives." So said this morning Yaakov Shabo, one of four Israelis who made a wrong turn on Friday into an Arab-populated neighborhood and were saved at the last moment from a lynching. "Another minute and I would have been dead," another of the Israelis said. "I thought we were going to end up like those two poor soldiers who were killed in Ramallah" - a reference to Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Norzitch who were brutally lynched in the Ramallah police station when they made a wrong turn into the city on Oct. 12, 2000.
Shabo said that he and three others were on their way from Beit El to Jerusalem when they arrived in the area of the Atarot Airport and turned right instead of left: "The problem was that our driver didn't know the way, and the escort somehow got lost, and when we arrived at the checkpoint, the soldiers waved us on [assuming we were Arabs] instead of checking us. Very soon we realized our mistake, and tried to turn around, but then a mob of Arabs came out and started stoning us - rocks, metal pipes and debris, concrete blocks, whatever they had." Shabo said that among the hundreds who attacked, "they were all happy to kill Jews. None of them tried to save us - except for two who acted like human beings. They told us to get out of the truck and they would get us out of there safely. I said, 'What about the truck?' They said, 'Forget about the truck! You have to get out of here!' So I ran with them to the checkpoint and told the soldiers that they have to save my friends who are about to be killed."
Scenes of the near-lynching caught on film show Arabs pelting the truck from all sides, with one man attacking the door of the truck with a metal pipe.
The army in fact sent in a force to extricate the three remaining Israelis. "I felt like the soldiers who came were like angels coming to save us," said another of the Israelis. The damaged trucks were later towed to the checkpoint as well.
Three of the four Israelis were taken to hospitals in light condition and have already been released. Shabo, who was hurt more seriously, expects to be released today or tomorrow.
Police sources investigating whether the drivers in fact entered the area in error have apparently concluded that they did not intentionally violate the ban on entering PA-controlled areas. Nothing has been said, however, about a police investigation of possible criminal violations by the Arab mob.