Shimon Rant, a 73-year-old retired gym teacher, was credited with averting a terrorist bombing on the beach at Bat Galim near Haifa Friday and apprehending the three perpetrators. Rant, who was an underground fighter in Poland during World War II and lives in Haifa, spotted one of three youths burying a suspicious-looking object in the sand.
He was on the beach early Friday morning for his daily swim when he noticed the three men; two of them standing in the surf and the third digging vigorously, depositing on object in the hole and covering it with sand. When the three left, Rant dug up the object which turned out to be a thermos jug filled with explosives. An attached device was timed to detonate the explosives several hours later when the beach would have been packed with bathers.
Rant, after yelling to others on the beach to “run away,” gave chase to the three terrorists who were still in sight. He was joined by a local kiosk owner and by several soldiers who had been waiting on a nearby road to hitch a ride. The three men were captured and held until police arrived. They had knapsacks, one of which contained another, explosive-filled themes jug which they apparently intended to plant elsewhere.
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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.
