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August 13, 2004
PA policeman kills Itamar father of seven
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Shlomo Miller, 50, a father of seven and the security head of Itamar, was shot to death by a member of the West Bank security service on Friday morning.
Security officials told The Jerusalem Post that since the outbreak of violence nearly four years ago they estimate that between 700 to 800 members of the Palestinian security forces have been involved directly and indirectly in terror attacks.
Hundreds attended Miller’s funeral at the Mount of Olives cemetery on Friday afternoon. Miller’s 17-year-old son, Eliahu, blamed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, asking: "How dare you give those murderers weapons? Look what they do with those weapons, they murdered my father… We are left a family of seven children without a father."
On Friday morning, Miller, received reports of gunshots being fired at the guard post on the eastern side of the community and set out to investigate. He drove past the recently erected security fence that Itamar residents had paid for and set out on the road leading to the nearby Gideonim police encamp? ment.
Yusef Ahmed Hanani, 29, of Beit Furik near Nablus shot at Miller’s car with a Kalashnikov rifle, but did not hit him. Miller got out armed with his M-16 and was hit and collapsed, suffering several gunshot wounds to the chest and head.
Hanani grabbed Miller’s weapon and began to flee. At that point, the community’s emergency response team reached the site.
Hanani, using both weapons, fired at them, but was then shot dead.
Miller died in an army helicopter en route to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
According to security officials, Hanani was in charge of thwarting terror attacks at operational headquarters in Ramallah.
While the Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, Hanani was dispatched by Ahmed Ita Abu Salta, 25, a senior Tanzim commander in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus.
At the Shamgar funeral parlor in Jerusalem, outgoing IDF commander of the Samaria district Col. Harel Knafo said: "When I heard you had been killed, many thoughts passed through my mind. Some of them — why does such a thing have to happen now and why you? The conclusion I reached was it happened to you because you were always the first, at the forefront." Knafo praised Miller, who he said was responsible for setting up the security detail at Itamar and ensuring that all the residents were safe.
A statement issued by the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza said: "The grave attack at Itamar proves that the IDF is right and Sharon wrong. The disengagement is blowing up in our faces and the fact that the terrorist was a Palestinian security official proves they they must not be allowed to carry weapons."
Community spokesman Yaacov Hayman said Miller, who was originally from South Africa, moved to Itamar with his wife Esther and children eight years ago and was appointed as head of security in 2002. "He dearly wanted to see the community flourish and develop and he worked around the clock day and night to make sure everyone was safe," he told The Jerusalem Post. After the attack, IDF units imposed a curfew on Beit Furik and searched the area. That afternoon, Hanani’s home was demolished.
Miller is the 13th resident of Itamar to have been killed in a terror attack since 2000.
In May 2002, in a terrorist infiltration into the community’s yeshiva, three students were shot dead, two as they played basketball and a third who was in his room. A security guard wounded the terrorist who was then shot and killed by another resident, a reservist company commander in the paratroopers.
A month later Rachel Shabu, her three children, and Yosef Twitto, the head of the community’s security response team at the time, were shot when a terrorist infiltrated the Shabu family home.
In Memoriam
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