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February 24, 2002
Man killed in drive-by shooting
MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Valerie Ahmir of Beit Shemesh was killed by terrorists in a drive-by shooting on the Atarot-Givat Ze'ev road north of Jerusalem on Friday afternoon as he returned home from work. The attack occurred hours after a civilian in the Gush Etzion community of Efrat shot and killed a suicide bomber before the terrorist could detonate his explosives inside a supermarket.
Ahmir, 59, was returning home at around 4 p.m. from the Atarot industrial center where he worked as a guard when terrorists in a passing car sprayed his vehicle with gunfire, hitting him in the head. His vehicle crashed into a safety barrier on the side of the road.
The terrorists fled toward nearby Beituniya, on the outskirts of Ramallah. Security forces searched the area for the perpetrators. The Fatah Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack.
In the Efrat incident Friday morning, an alert customer shot and killed a Palestinian wearing a coat and sunglasses who entered the Ish Efrat supermarket and attempted to detonate a belt of explosives he was wearing. Some of the explosives detonated, causing a small explosion, before he was shot to death. An elderly woman was lightly wounded in the attack and taken to Hadassah- University Hospital in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem.
The would-be suicide bomber was later identified as Muhammad Tawfik Shimali, 24, of the village of Douha. Shimali reportedly once worked on an Efrat building site.
Security forces sealed off the area and searched for additional bombs as police sappers detonated the remaining explosives on his belt.
Later in the afternoon, a small group of residents placed strips of pigskin on the terrorist's body to prevent him from 'enjoying the delights of 70 virgins in paradise.' Nadia Matar of Women in Green said the residents purchased the pigskin at a non-kosher butcher in Jerusalem and then returned to the community and placed it on the terrorist's body.
Efrat Local Council head Eitan Golan said that Arabs would be barred from entering the community to work in the coming days. He told reporters that, following the suicide bomb attack at Karnei Shomron, he had learned that the army had not issued orders preventing Arab workers from entering Jewish communities.
Efrat's Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a staunch supporter of coexistence between Israelis and Arabs in the past, said that until the incitement stops there can be no room for coexistence between the two peoples. 'We are at war and we have to show them that they cannot beat us - only then can there be peace and we will be able to rehabilitate relations between Palestinians and Israelis.'
Last night two soldiers on leave were wounded in a shooting attack on the Halamish-Rantiss road. Despite their wounds, they and two other soldiers who were in the car with them were able to reach the Bir Zeit bridge and alert their comrades. Both soldiers are in satisfactory condition at Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem.
In other violence over the weekend:
* Palestinians reported 13 wounded in clashes with soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to reports six Palestinians were wounded in the Rafah area by IDF soldiers yesterday, among them an 11-year-old boy who was shot in the back near Rafah after grenades were thrown at soldiers deployed nearby.
In Memoriam
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