Dear Palestinian Shooter,
Happy Ramadan. I can tell by the news each day that your people are having a wonderful month. Just days into it and already they’ve hit dozens of cars and buses, injured several people and shown once again that the engineer who decided to send the lightrail through the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat was an idiot. You have exploded bombs around the world that have killed a few hundred and shot fireworks at a bunch of 18 and 19 year old unarmed kids playing basketball. Picnicked in France with the beheading of one man, dozens murdered in Tunisia…and here in little Israel, I have to hand it to you – you’ve tried very hard to murder and maim.
Rockets fired, trains, buses, and cars have been stoned…a man was beaten to death, several stabbed…and now, in the greatest of all mysteries, you fired at least five bullets at an ambulance, managing to hit on both sides of the driver…and still missing him. My first thought when I saw the video and listened to the driver showing the results of your attack, was “how the heck did you miss?”
It takes talent, it really does, to get so close and still miss so well. I mean – most people either hit the car and kill the person, or miss the car completely. You managed to hit the ambulance and STILL not kill the person.
But then, the ambulance driver explained it perfectly, and during your holy month of Ramadan no less.
“This is ambulance number six-nine of Jerusalem,” the driver begins as he holds the video camera (probably his phone) and focuses on the ambulance.
At this point, Elie pointed out that this is a regular ambulance, not one that is bullet proof. Of course, we have those too here in Israel because this isn’t the first time Palestinians have fired on our ambulances.
And, at this point, Davidi pointed out that, “and it isn’t like we only help Jews. Ambulances help Arabs all the time.” Given that David, like Elie, is a regular volunteer for the ambulance – and both have been called into Azariya and other Arab neighborhoods, he should know.
“A few minutes ago,” the driver continues, unaware that both Elie and Davidi are trying to explain things to me, “a terrorist who was standing on the side of the road fired. We see here the locations of the “hits”. He fired four shots; there were a lot more.”
This is where Elie points out that security forces found no less than 19 casings – 19 shots fired…at least five struck the ambulance.
“There are three shots that entered here near the front door and another one in the back,” the ambulance driver continues…because at that moment, just minutes after the attack, what really matters to him is that you missed, not how many you fired at him.
He circles to the front of the ambulance where you can clearly see a bullet hole in the front windshield “and the exit point, here, close to the driver’s head, and that was me, [he says with a bit of an embarrassed laugh] and another exit point here with the bullet still stuck in the door.”
At this point, he focuses in where you can see a bullet-shaped bump pushing outwards. Having gone through one thick metal door, the bullet was slowed down enough that it became impaled just behind the driver’s door. It missed him by a few…a very few…inches.
And then, as we stare at the ambulance in utter shock that you managed to miss him, the driver offers the truth, dear Palestinian shooter, to how the heck you failed to hit him.