Shaul Mishanya, a 48-year-old jeweller from Bat-Yam, said he prayed for help to the prophet Elijah from the bottom of a dry well, and Elijah appeared — in the form of Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank.
Mishanya is the first Jew kidnapped by Palestinians in the administered territories who lived to tell about it.
He was rescued unharmed Friday, less than 36 hours after being reported missing, in an operation for which the Israel Defense Force and the internal security service, Shin Bet, have been praised.
But the incident has caused serious concern in high security circles that the 20-month-old intifada, as the Palestinian uprising is called, is being increasingly “Lebanonized.”
In recent months, Israeli soldiers have been abducted and murdered, clear cases of terror.
Mishanya is the first Israeli civilian to be snatched as a hostage. The fact that he was treated well by his captors suggests they intended to use him to bargain for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
That is precisely what has been happening in Lebanon, where the kidnapped hostages are Western nationals.
The authorities are clearly worried that from now on there will be more abductions of Israeli civilians, and not all of them with happy endings.
Mishanya, looking shabby and unkempt, sat wide-eyed next to Gen. Mordechai at a news conference Friday at the Tulkarm military post. He discussed his ordeal in broken sentences, as if uncertain that it was over.
STOPPED BY TWO MASKED MEN
“You may laugh,” he told the assembled reporters, “but I have many stories about prophet Elijah. I stood in the well and prayed to Elijah,” Mishanya said, raising his arms in a gesture of praying.
” ‘Please Elijah,’ I prayed, ‘save me.’ And then came Elijah.” He pointed to the general.
Mishanya’s adventure began Wednesday afternoon, when he arrived in Tulkarm to meet an Arab jeweller with whom he had long done business.
He arrived in a local taxi driven by an Arab, having left his Peugeot pickup in the nearby Israeli Arab village of Kalansuwa, just across the “Green Line” separating the West Bank from pre-1967 Israel.
The truck carried Israeli licenses plates, reason enough to leave it behind.
But so did the Arab-driven taxi that brought Mishanya to Tulkarm. In fact, it created an ugly mood in the center of the Arab town, and the Israeli promptly took refuge in the shop of his Arab business partner.
Hours later, he hailed a taxi with West Bank license plates and asked to be driven to Kalansuwa.
“But suddenly the car was stopped by two masked men, who ordered the passengers and the cab driver to get out. One man threatened me with a screw driver. A cloth was put over my eyes,” Mishanya recounted.
Blindfolded, he was driven by car for a while. Later, he was forced to walk for three hours and then mount a donkey. In the evening, he was lowered to the bottom of a well. He had no idea where it was.
“They didn’t say a word to me why they kidnapped me. But they treated me well, they did not hurt me,” Mishanya said.
Eventually he was left with one guard sitting at the top of the well. He went off to get food, warning the prisoner not to shout.
SEVERAL SUSPECTS ARRESTED
The search for Mishanya began only late Wednesday night, when the cab driver finally reported to the Tulkarm police station that his fare had been kidnapped.
Masses of soldiers, border policemen, Shin Bet agents and air force helicopters were rushed to the area.
Later, Mishanya’s pickup truck was seen in the nearby Arab village of Abush, where the kidnappers had driven it from Kalansuwa on the Israeli side of the line.
The IDF imposed a seige on Abush. Every house in the village was searched, and all males were rounded up and questioned.
Finally, the man who had been taking food to Mishanya was discovered and he led troops to the well.
Security forces arrested a number of suspects believed involved with the kidnapping. Some of them were reportedly of “a religious background.”
It is not known, however, if the suspects belong to a known organization or formed an adhoc group for the kidnapping.
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