A top Israeli security official, in a newspaper interview given on the eve of his retirement, admitted to killing two Palestinian terrorists after their capture in 1984.
The senior official in the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, also said he had no regrets.
Ehud Yatom told the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot the details of the incident, which had prompted a public debate on the Shin Bet’s powers.
In April 1984, four Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Egged bus, threatening to kill the passengers. During a rescue raid, two of the terrorists were killed, along with one passenger.
Two other hijackers survived.
Yatom said the two were taken from the bus and beaten.
“Everyone who was there — the army, civilians, the [Shin Bet] — beat them,” he said. “It was a spontaneous act following a long night of uncertainty about what was happening on the bus.”
Yatom added: “We put them in the van and drove off. On the way we received instructions from [Shin Bet Chief] Avraham Shalom to kill them, so we killed them.”
Shin Bet officials said at the time of the attack that those two hijackers were killed as the bus was stormed.
But newspapers had published photos of the hijackers being taken away, unhurt.
Yatom said he was sorry that the real story had gotten out.
“We made a mistake when we killed them because the operation was being covered by the media,” he said.
A government inquiry into the affair later found Yitzhak Mordechai, who was then the head of the paratroop unit that stormed the bus and who now serves as defense minister, responsible for causing grievous bodily harm to the hijackers.
A military court later acquitted Mordechai, saying that he was framed by Shin Bet agents.
Shalom eventually resigned because of the incident. He later was pardoned.
Yatom retires this week after 24 years in the service. “I am the only one who came out of this whole episode emotionally healthy,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
