Nationwide Search for Man Who Raped and Shot 18-year-old Soldier

Police are conducting a nationwide search for leads and are questioning suspects in the rape and shooting of an 18-year-old soldier who remains partially paralyzed from the attack.

The woman, whose identity has been withheld, said the attacker had given her a lift in his car on August 16 while she was hitchhiking from her army base near Beersheba to her home in the Negev. After driving a few miles, the assailant raped the soldier and then shot her in the head, leaving her for dead. Bleeding profusely, she managed to drag herself some distance from the scene of the attack and was found by local Bedouins in the Negev some 20 hours later.

Doctors said she was fortunate in having fallen with the injured side of her head lying on sand, which solidified with her blood, preventing further bleeding. In serious condition still, the girl suffered from brain damage but has recovered sufficiently to describe the attack and her attacker.

She was transferred this morning from a Beersheba hospital to the Beth Levinstein rehabilitation center and hospital in Raanana. Doctors said she would need a lengthy period of physical and emotional rehabilitation.

LEADING ARTIST HELPS POLICE

Police received some help when Menasha Kadishman, a leading artist, was able to draw a likeness of the assailant, from the victim’s information, after police artists failed to draw a likeness satisfactory to the victim.

Since the Kadishman drawing was telecast on Israeli television last night, police said scores of viewers have called in to say they had information on the rapist, described as between 28 and 30 years of age, of average height, fair-skinned and husky, with light brown hair, with somewhat protruding lower teeth. He spoke fluent Hebrew.