Two months after a suicide bomber blasted the supermarket where Miriam Biton worked, the mother of three was struggling for some kind of peace. She resorted to taking sleeping pills, avoided crowds and clung to the hope that lightning would not strike her family twice.
Unfortunately, it did strike again, leading her to sit in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital caressing the hand of her eldest son, Avi. He was one of more than 50 people wounded in a suicide bombing Wednesday night.
The 21-year-old border policeman was guarding the busy French Hill intersection in north Jerusalem when a Palestinian bomber detonated his charge at a crowded bus stop. The blast killed seven Israelis.
In the past two days in Jerusalem, 26 Israelis have been killed in suicide attacks.
Biton had just driven past her son while he was on patrol Wednesday. She heard the news of the blast and drove to the scene. She was one of the lucky mothers that night: Her son had only head and shoulder wounds.
“When I was on my way to hospital I just prayed to God to keep my son alive, even if he was to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair,” Biton said.
Jerusalem and the rest of Israel are shuddering from relentless suicide attacks, with the recent ones occurring despite intelligence warnings that Jerusalem is a target. A large deployment of police and roadblocks on incoming roads failed to prevent the carnage.
Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said Thursday that police manage to thwart most attacks, saying three were foiled in the past month. But he noted that “when just one gets through the result is terrible devastation.”
Police figures show that terrorist attacks rose 337 percent in 2001 and are expected to skyrocket further this year.
Early next week, construction is to begin on the Jerusalem section of the controversial West Bank security fence. That’s not likely to ensure safety, Kleiman said, in the face of highly motivated killers.
“A suicide bomber is the most sophisticated missile in the world. It might be a very sick mind, but it’s still a human mind with a capacity to seek out its target and change direction at the last second,” he said.
For now, there are no assurances to avoid these human bombs, whose victims range from young to old and have made daily life a survival game.
Chen Elyashar, a 12-year-old resident of Gilo in southern Jerusalem, was traveling to school on a bus that was blown to pieces on Tuesday. She is being treated at Hadassah hospital for her injuries.
If a series of operations goes well, her father said, the youngster will be out of the hospital in two weeks.
“Chen has vowed never to travel on a bus again and that suits us fine,” said her father, Yehezkel.
The family is looking for an alternative school for her, one within walking distance of home, he said.
Some Israelis take a more fatalistic approach, stubbornly refusing to alter their daily routine. Waiting to hitch a ride at the site of the French Hill bombing, Reut Ben Yithak, 20, watched a bulldozer demolish the ruined concrete bus shelter.
“I’m not changing one iota of my routine. This is exactly what the terrorists want–for us all to live in fear,” he said.”If we break, it is a victory for terrorism and we cannot go down that path.”
Fellow hitchhiker and student Daphne Frum, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, tried to brush off her fears.
“Yes, of course I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s only natural to be afraid. But I have to travel home and I will continue to hitch lifts from here.
“But the sad truth is, it’s no safer anywhere else in Israel,” said Frum, whose settlement is north of Jerusalem.
“The only people who can sleep well at night are the toddlers who are too young to understand,” she said.
