Eden Natan-Zada - The Shefa-Amr Attack

The Shefa-Amr Attack

Natan-Zada boarded the Shefa-'Amr-bound bus on Thursday, 4 August 2005. He was dressed in full IDF uniform, carrying his IDF-issued M16 rifle, and, according to observers, wearing the skullcap, beard, and sidelocks of an observant Jew, as well as an orange ribbon hanging from his pocket. According to witnesses, the bus driver was initially surprised to see a religiously-observant Jewish soldier making his way to Shefa-'Amr (an overwhelmingly Arab city) via public bus, so he asked Natan-Zada if he was certain he wanted to take his current route. Upon arriving in Shefa-'Amr's primary Druze neighborhood, Natan-Zada stood up and approached the front door as if to disembark the bus. When the door opened, Natan-Zada turned around and shot the driver. He then fatally shot a man sitting behind the driver, and fired into the rest of the bus, killing two young women and wounding twenty-one passengers. When he paused to reload his weapon, a passenger grabbed the barrel of his gun, sustaining burn injuries, and he was subdued by streetgoers gathered around the scene of the bus shooting. When the police arrived at the scene he was tied up but still alive, but the small force of Israel Police officers on the scene could not prevent the crowd from lynching him, and nine police officers were injured attempting to protect him. It took the police four hours to remove his body from the scene.

The four victims were Hazar Turki and Dina Turki, two sisters in their early twenties, and two men, Michel Bahus (the driver) and Nader Hayek; all were Arab citizens of Israel. The wounded were rushed to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. In the days after the attack, 40,000 people attended a funeral service in honour of the victims in the town. The two sisters were buried in an Islamic cemetery, and the two men in the local Christian cemetery.

Ten months after the attack, Israeli authorities detained seven Arabs suspected of lynching Natan-Zada. Six were arrested, while the seventh turned himself in. Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh condemned the arrests.