A “beloved” cancer survivor, mother-to-be and a 22-year-old on a birthright trip to Israel were named among American victims of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Saturday night.
A total of eight people were injured in the shooting near David’s tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the walls of the Old City. Five of the victims are Americans.
The gunman named Amir Sidawi from East Jerusalem opened fire in two locations around 6:30 p.m. ET. First he hit a bus waiting in a parking lot, shortly afterwards he shot at a crowd near the bus.
A Brooklyn man who was wounded in the shooting, Menachem Palace, 22, of Crown Heights, spoke openly to the media after the incident.
Palace said in the interview that he was in Israel with a group as part of a primogeniture trip to the Middle East. Birthright Tours are free trips to Israel offered to young Jewish adults around the world. They are paid for by charitable donations.
During his interview with Israeli outlet COLlive, Palace said he arrived in Israel on Friday night and has no plans to cut short his trip because of the incident.
He told the interviewer: “The trip ends on Thursday and I intend to stay. This is our country – the safest place on earth.”
Brooklyn-based Menachem Palace told Israeli television that he would not abandon his trip to the Holy Land despite being shot in a terrorist attack
The gunman named Amir Sidawi from East Jerusalem opened fire in two locations around 6:30 p.m. ET
According to authorities, Sidawi left the gun used in the shooting in the back of a taxi after stopping the taxi to turn himself in
Palace recounted the shooting: “I looked to the right of the window I was sitting next to and saw that it was completely shattered. I ducked quickly and saw blood on my shoulder.’
Palace continued: “From all the adrenaline, I didn’t realize a bullet went into my shoulder.”
During a speech Sunday, New York Senator Chuck Schumer identified one of the victims as Shia Hersch Glick of the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Glick was “shot in the neck while protecting his wife and children,” Senator Schumer said, according to the New York Post. He is in critical condition and on a ventilator but is expected to survive.
The Democratic lawmakers described Glick as a “cancer survivor loved by everyone in the community.” He is a member of the Satmar Hasidic movement, a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
His son was also wounded after being shot in the arm. United Jewish Organizations executive director Rabbi David Niederman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Glick’s wife and daughter were also injured.
Niederman said the family is in the Holy Land because Glick’s son is getting married. They were waiting for a taxi when they were attacked.
A friend of Glick’s told the New York Daily News: “We need him. He didn’t deserve to die. He’s never hurt a fly before.”
The friend, Isaac Weiss, said that Glick “pounced” on this family when the shooting started.
A pregnant woman who was shot in the abdomen in the attack had to give birth by caesarean section due to her injuries.
dr Alon Schwartz, of Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center, told i24 News in Israel: “The baby is being intubated in the NICU – ventilated and intubated and in serious condition.”
The suspect was named as 26-year-old East Jerusalem Amir Sidawi. According to Israeli authorities, Sidawi hailed a taxi and went to a nearby police station to surrender himself on Sunday morning.
The man who drove Sidawi, named Shalom Harush, said it “didn’t feel good” to have the suspected terrorist in his car.
The taxi driver added that the suspect left the gun used in the attack on the floor of the car.
Officials in Israel believe Sidawi acted alone in the shooting. Despite this, his brother was also held in custody for three days, reports YNET News.
The outlet reports that Sidawi was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015 for aggravated assault. In prison, Sidawi underwent aggression therapy.
A believer puts his finger on a bullet hole in the bus window in the early hours of this morning
Members of the city’s ZAKA search and rescue team clean up blood from the street
Ultra-Orthodox Jews look down the street in East Jerusalem’s Old City where the bus was hit
According to the Guardian, Sidawi was concerned about the impact his actions would have on his family.
The newspaper also quoted a Hamas spokesman as praising the shooting as a “heroic operation” but taking no responsibility.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said: “This was a lone perpetrator, a resident of the city with a criminal background. Those who harm Israeli citizens have nowhere to hide.”
Paramedics on motorcycles respond to the gunfire, which wounded several Israeli worshipers
An Israeli security officer stands behind a broken window while examining the crime scene
Non-American casualties included Israeli brothers Elazar and Dovi. Both are expected to survive.
Her older brother, Yair, told the Times of Israel: “Both my brothers were together last night waiting for the bus. Elazar was helping a woman get on the bus and my 16.5 year old brother Dovi was still standing at the bus stop when the shooting started.”
Yair continued: “Dovi called himself and told it [the family] that they were both hit by a bullet, that he was conscious and that he was fine. It calmed us down.”
Bus driver Daniel Kanievsky told the BBC: “We opened the ramp for someone in a wheelchair and then filming started. Everyone fell to the ground screaming. I tried to escape but the bus couldn’t go with the ramp open.”
The attack in Jerusalem was followed by a tense week between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli planes launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip against the Islamic Jihad militant group, sparking three days of intense cross-border fighting.
Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up to retaliate for airstrikes that killed two of its commanders and other militants.
Israel said the attack was intended to thwart threats by the group to respond to the arrest of one of its officers in the occupied West Bank.
The fighting, which ended in an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, killed 49 Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, and wounded several hundred.
No Israeli was killed or seriously injured.
The Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, has remained on the sidelines.
A day after the ceasefire ended the worst fighting in Gaza in more than a year, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a shootout that broke out during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.