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Three Students Shot As They Go On Mivtza Purim
  

In a shocking tragedy that occurred this Purim near Chevron, seven Tmimim who went out Purim night to deliver mishloach manos and to read the Megilla at army bases were ambushed and fired upon by terrorists. Three bachurim were injured in the attack, brothers Shmuel and Menachem Mendel Offen, and Schneur Schneerson.

Shmuel Offen, 17, who learns in Ts’fas, was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to his neck. His condition was reported to be serious but improving, and he is able to talk. His brother, Menachem Mendel, 18, who learns at Toras Emes in Yerushalayim, underwent surgery to remove a bullet that had entered his shoulder and exited close to his neck. Mendy was released on Purim, but still suffers from pain. He has resumed his studies and is constantly surrounded by friends. The father of the two boys is Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Offen, mashpia in Chabad yeshivos in Yerushalayim and Tz’fas.

Schneur Schneerson, of Kfar Chabad, was treated and released for superficial wounds.

The incident took place not far from the Tarkumaya roadblock, near the army base serving as a “secure transit” checkpoint.

The group was traveling in a white Peugot minibus, driven by Yoram Sharabi of Kiryat Arba, on their regular mivtzaim route to the army bases in Hebron. The terrorists were waiting in ambush in a vehicle on the side of the highway. As the boys drove by, the terrorists opened fire with automatic weapons.

A bullet entered Shmuli’s neck and went out the other side, breaking two fingers he had raised towards his head. Fortunately there was a helicopter nearby, and he was airlifted, unconscious, to Hadasa Ein Kerem Hospital in Yerushalayim. He underwent two operations.

Shmuel Karasik, a friend of the Offen boys, said doctors considered it a miracle that the bullet had gone through one side of Shmuli Offen’s neck and out the other without harming any vital organs on the way. Adding to the wonder, at the very moment the shooting occurred, Shmulik had been turning around in the vehicle to pass someone a Moshiach flag, and thus his neck was turned to the side.

A second miracle, Karasik reports, is the fact that the helicopter was available nearby. “He had lost a lot of blood.”

Rabbi Dovid Turkoff, mashpia of the Machon Alte Women’s Seminary in Tsfas, says a further miracle occurred when one of the bachurim in the front seat bent down to fix the loudspeaker and a bullet zipped right over his head and out the front windshield.

Two of Turkoff’s sons were initially slated to travel in Offen’s van but at the last minute were changed to one of the other two cars also on mivtzaim in the Hebron area.

“This shows the boldness and chutzpa of the Arabs that this took place 100 to 150 yards from a major army installation,” said Rabbi Turkoff. “And they just turned around and went into a Palestinian area, where the army couldn’t pursue them.”

The driver, Yoram Sharabi, relates, “As we approached the army base, we saw a car parked on the side of the road. As we drove around it, they turned on the lights, blinding us, and began shooting. Suddenly I heard Menachem scream, “I was hit, I was hit!” I ran to the base and called for help.”

Sharabi met soldiers of the Golani shocktroop unit who were at the nearby base. They had heard the shooting themselves and had immediately run to the scene. The army medics gave first aid to the wounded. In the meantime, the I.D.F. and the police of Yehuda and Shomron closed the highway and began combing the area, searching for the terrorists’ car. A quarter of an hour later, the car was found abandoned on a side road.

Apparently, the terrorists continued on foot in the direction of Kfar Arina. Security forces imposed a curfew on the village and began house-to-house searches. The terrorists have not yet been apprehended.

Security forces believe that the shooting was perpetrated by Hamas forces. Army personnel indicated that at least two Hamas cells are operating in the area.

News of the shooting was reported to the Commanding Officer of I.D.F. forces in Yehuda-Shomron, General Bogi Yaalon, while he was meeting his Palestinian counterpart to sign the agreement of a further six percent withdrawal from Yehuda-Shomron. As soon as he signed the agreement, Yaalon was rushed to the scene of the shooting.

This incident occurred on the so-called secure passage within the Green Line in Area C, which is under full Israeli authority. A half a year ago, five Israelis were wounded in the same area when terrorists shot from close range at a busload of families who had come to spend the weekend in the Jewish settlement in Hebron.

The Council of Yesh’a reacted strongly to the attack and said, “Barak’s government’s waiving the demand to round up illegal weapons in the autonomous area, as well as the signing for withdrawals despite the incident in Tarkumaya, testify to contempt for human life and total intransigence.”

Head of the Council in Kiryat Arba, Tzvi Katzover, said, “One attack follows another. The terrorists return to areas that won’t be ours tomorrow, and the blood is on the hands of those who compromise our security and our land.”

President Ezer Weizman visited Shmuel Offen in the hospital. At that time, Shmuli was not able to talk, but was able to write the president a note asking how it was that on that same day, Israel was ceremoniously meeting with Palestinians to turn over control of those same roads to armed Palestinians. Weizman avoided an answer, but Shmuli’s brother-in-law, who was at his bedside, followed his lead, and a heated argument ensued.

As of this report, Shmuli is talking and his condition is improving, baruch Hashem. Relatives, friends, and the soldiers on his mivtzaim route have been constant visitors to him and to the other boys when they were in the hospital.

After the incident, it was discovered that the mezuza on Mendy’s dorm room was pasul. In the second paragraph of Sh’ma, the letters Hei and Mem were transposed in the word “liv’hemtecha.

A close friend of Mendy wrote a note and placed it into a volume of Igros Kodesh after the shooting. The answer appeared on page 238 of Vol. 18, and was written to Shmuel Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the names of the three bachurim injured in the shooting! The letter was about mivtzaim, and concluded that there should be good news, happy news, as it is the month of Adar. The letter had been written by the Rebbe on Rosh Chodesh Adar Sheini, and said that with Adar so close to the month of Nissan, we should merit Moshiach now!

Before he went on mivtzaim that Purim, Mendy had been indecisive about whether to go to his usual spots around Hebron or to a larger army base in a different area. Opening the Igros Kodesh, the Rebbe answered that he should do mivtzaim through mesiras nefesh. He chose to go to Hebron, but he did not understand until after the shooting what the Rebbe had meant by mesiras nefesh.

He and Schneur Wigler of Ramot were among a core group of bachurim who had been regularly going on mivtzaim in the same area every Erev Shabbos for the past two years. Although they had been in the vehicle that was ambushed, Wigler and the other bachurim who had not been injured returned to the area that night, undeterred, to continue with their Purim mivtzaim. They also traveled that same route on mivtzaim later that week. The soldiers were shocked and pleasantly surprised when they saw the bachurim return the same day of the shooting.

Wigler said that he did not understand where his strength came from to continue the mivtzaim after such a frightening incident occurred to them. He could only say that the Rebbe gives them their enthusiasm and spirit. Not only was their spirit not snuffed out by the attack, but on the contrary, the incident gave the bachurim even more impetus to carry forth. “That’s our way of getting back – by growing even stronger,” said one of the bachurim.

Until now, they had been using one car for mivtzaim. Now they are planning to add another car and are planning a major increase in Torah shiurim among the soldiers, and will distribute tefillin to those who will use it on a regular basis.

Anyone who wishes to assist in the mivtzaim either financially or otherwise, or has tefillin to donate, can contact Wigler at 053-844-994.

Please say Tehillim for Shmuel ben Devora and Menachem Mendel ben Devorah.
 

   

Shmuel Offen (on hospital bed) with his brother Mendy (left)
 


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