Israel absorbs the horror of the latest attack on its citizens, which left three people dead.
Deaths of soldier, attacker, migrant reflect chaos
JERUSALEM — Omri Levy, 19, was a soldier. He fought to join the famed Golani Brigade, despite a bad back that could have exempted him from combat duty.
Habtom Zerhom, 29, was an African asylum seeker. He fled his native Eritrea seeking a new life away from the heavy-handed regime and made his way to Israel like many tens of thousands of his countrymen.
And Mohannad al-Okbi, 21, was an Israeli Arab, a metal worker, who was a member of the Bedouin community in the southern part of the country and had, by one account, been drawn to radical messages disseminated by the Islamic State.
The paths of these different young people crossed tragically in the city of Beersheba on Sunday, leaving all three dead and prompting a fresh round of soul searching in the communities they left behind.
Heated debates continued to swirl in Israel on Monday in the aftermath of the attack, in which al-Okbi went on a shooting rampage through a crowded bus station, killing Levy and injuring nine others. A security guard, assuming Zerhom was an accomplice, shot him, authorities said, after which a mob set on the migrant and beat him. He died later at a hospital.
Remembrance candles glowed at the site of the attack Monday evening, a modest gesture for two victims who died as differently as they lived.
Levy was killed first. Authorities said al-Okbi fatally shot him with a handgun and then grabbed Levy’s automatic rifle and continued to shoot other civilians and police officers at the site.
Returning from weekend leave, Levy had been headed to join his friends, assigned as reinforcement near the border with Gaza to counter Palestinian protests. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Levy was from the small agricultural community of Sdei Hemed, whose residents had watched him grow up and, on Monday, saw him buried next to his father. Outside the Levy family home, death notices in simple black lettering were posted on the wooden garden fence as soldiers and neighbors huddled outside.
“We are all hurting today,” said Zeev Fatal, the community secretary. “It is a small community; we all knew him.”
Zerhom had come to Beersheba to renew the visa that allows him temporary residence in Israel. He worked in a greenhouse near the Gaza border, where his employer, Sagi Malachi, told the Ynet news site that Zerhom was a dedicated, pleasant and modest man who did his work quietly and well.
When the shooting began in the bus station, he ran for cover, authorities said. A local security guard, seeing a foreign-looking man on the run, assumed he was a terrorist and shot him.
As Zerhom lay wounded on the floor in a pool of blood, a mob beat him, kicking him and bashing him with metal benches. Efforts by several to protect the injured man failed and he was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
By that time, it was clear he was not involved in the attack and police had announced there had been only one gunman. Investigators began collecting footage from security cameras at the bus station to identify and locate the people involved.
Throughout Israel, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down, there was widespread condemnation of what was widely described as a lynching.
For many, the bus station attack and its aftermath seemed to underscore both public rage and confusion after three weeks of nearly daily attacks by Palestinians that have left nine Israelis dead and dozens more injured.
Some 40 Palestinians have been killed over the same time, around half of them assailants, or wouldbe assailants. The majority of the assailants were shot dead.