FROM OUR ARCHIVES
25 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 1991, The Jerusalem Post reported that an unknown assailant stabbed a French Christian woman to death in a restaurant in Bethlehem’s Manger Square in the first known such attack on a foreign tourist in that town. Annie Ley, 64, was part of a group of 15 French pilgrims. The attack was the worst of several acts of violence around Israel, including an attempt by a Gaza resident on the life of an Israeli farmer. A Gaza man was apprehended shortly after he reportedly tried to kill Eli Amer of Moshav Yagel. Police claimed that the suspect admitted belonging to the “Black Panthers.” Amer suffered light injuries only.
Senior Israeli government officials had recently issued a barrage of statements in an effort to convince both the public and Washington that the Arabs, not Israel, were blocking secretary of state James Baker’s attempt to convene a Middle East peace conference. There were fears that US president George Bush might make a speech shortly, alleging that Damascus and Jerusalem were equally to blame for the slow pace of the peace-making diplomacy. Israel wished to avoid this.
A Gaza man, Ashraf Ba’aluji, 21, who fatally stabbed two men and a woman in Jaffa in December 1990, was sentenced by the Tel Aviv District Court to three life terms.
15 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 2001, The Jerusalem Post reported that after being sentenced to 18 months’ suspended imprisonment, former Center political party leader, cabinet minister and IDF general Yitzhak Mordechai said he would appeal his conviction on three counts of committing an indecent act, two of them in aggravating circumstances.
Esther Sa’adah and her daughter Ayelet narrowly escaped injury when a bomb placed inside their car parked outside their sewing factory in the Gaza Strip community of Rafiah Yam exploded. Wahel Abu Muhsen, a Palestinian worker, was killed, and another Palestinian worker was wounded. The authorities were seeking to determine whether the bomb went off prematurely. One security officer said it was possible that the attack was an effort to scare Palestinian laborers permitted to work in Israel.
An explosion leveled a two-story residence in Ramallah during the night, killing at least one person and wounding others. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.
10 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed that senior Hamas figures in the Gaza Strip funded and trained the terrorists who the previous week launched an abortive strike at the Gaza Strip Karni crossing. This was the first time since winning the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006 that Hamas had been revealed as being directly involved in anti-Israeli terrorist activity. A cell comprising operatives from the Popular Resistance Committee, the Shin Bet revealed, arrived at Karni in three cars, one of which was filled with explosive canisters. The plan was to blow a hole in the wall dividing the Palestinian Authority side of the terminal from the Israeli side. The gunmen intended storming the Israeli facility via this opening. The attack, however, was thwarted by PA policemen, who stopped the cars at a roadblock close to the Karni crossing.
Sara Baharav, 62, a nurse and army widow, decried the state insurance policy as unfair. She was one of 900 widows who had been denied life insurance payments by the Defense Ministry. Since 1950, every soldier killed in battle had received financial compensation from the state. However, while professional soldiers were provided with special insurance policies because the army was their career, reserve soldiers were expected to take life insurance policies on their own.
– Alexander Zvielli