3 Palestinian Arabs hijack car with baby in back

 

After mother is forced out of car she calls husband. Then father with friend enter hostile Arab village, finds his car abandoned with daughter sitting safely inside.

Father: ‘I wasn’t scared. I was only thinking about one thing – my daughter’s life’.

By Akiva Novick

Three Palestinian men hijacked a Dolev resident’s car Tuesday, when in the back seat sat her three-month-old daughter.

The car that was hijacked (Photo: Police Spokesperson)

The car that was hijacked – Photo: Police Spokesperson

The baby’s life was saved due the father’s resourcefulness, who found his daughter in the car, abandoned, between two hostile villages.

The incident happened in the Binyamin Hills Tuesday afternoon, around 4 pm. “I was driving home to Dolev with my daughter in the back seat,” the mother said. “All of sudden a vehicle got close to me, so I sped up. But then I felt a blow in the back, and I immediately stopped and got out of the car to see what happened.

“There were three Palestinians in the vehicle. One of them got out and asked if everything was fine. Before I could answer he was already in my car. The two cars drove away quickly. I felt helpless. My phone was in the car, so I ran into the middle of the street yelling that they kidnapped my daughter. An Arab man let me call my husband.”

While all this was happening, the husband, a former officer in an elite unit, was at home. “She screamed on the phone that out daughter was kidnapped in the vehicle,” he said. “I put on my shoes, grabbed a knife and ran outside to save my daughter. I looked for a car that I could take, and then I saw my friend’s jeep parked, who I know also has a gun. We set off quickly together to the site of the kidnapping.

The two met the worried mother at the site of the kidnapping. “My wife pointed to the direction where they drove off. I realized that they were on the way to Ramallah. We took the jeep and entered the village quickly to save her. I wasn’t scared. I was only thinking about one thing – my daughter’s life was hanging in the balance.

“In the middle of the village an Arab man stopped us and said to us in Hebrew, ‘Come with me. It’ll be all right.’ We continued and found the vehicle abandoned on the side of the road with a bunch of Palestinians crowding around. I went up to the back door to see if my daughter was okay, and she had just woken up, not knowing what had happened and surprised to see me.”

At the same time a large police and military force came into the village. Concurrently, Palestinian Police arrived and wanted to take the father for questioning in Ramallah. He refused. The parents drove to the police station in Modi’in Illit with their daughter, where the mother identified the faces of the three kidnappers, who are known to police. Only in the evening did the family go home and put their daughter to sleep.

“I don’t want to think about what could have happened,” the father said. “If they would have decided they could have easily taken our daughter to a cellar in Ramallah, and she would have been used for negotiating. Luckily, the police acted with determination, going into the village without waiting for armored vehicles.

“We live in a heavy-secured area with fences and patrol cars. It doesn’t make sense that we should feel so exposed and vulnerable, and for every Palestinian who feels like it can act whichever way he wants. We hope that this incident will be the last. We live in fear and there’s a silent intifada going on here.”

 

View original Ynet publication at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4461221,00.html