Mrs. Miriam Holtz-berg remained on the critical list today as doctors at Tel Hashomer Hospital battled to save her life. The 22-year-old Israeli woman was severely wounded during the gun battle inside a hijacked Sabena jet at Lydda Airport last Wednesday. A nurse at the hospital was quoted as saying, “Only a miracle can save her and we hope for this miracle,”
Another wounded passenger, 55-year-old Wilfred Kordovsk, a German-Jewish film producer, was reported to be recovering satisfactorily from the four bullet wounds he sustained. Kordovsk was fired on by Israeli soldiers who mistook him for one of the terrorists as they stormed into the aircraft to liberate it. He said the mistake was understandable since at the moment he was running after one of the armed women terrorists, Rima Eisa, in an attempt to subdue her. Visited by two of the soldiers at the hospital yesterday, Kordovsk said “You boys were wonderful. I have nothing against you. You did what you had to do.”
Mrs. Paula Rubin, another injured passenger, has been discharged from the hospital. Theresa Halsa, the Acre born terrorist wounded in the battle was also recovering after a series of blood transfusions and has been transferred from Tel Hashomer to another hospital.
TERRORIST LOVES JEWS
Miss Halsa and Miss Eisa, the only two terrorists to survive, face trial before a military tribunal. Miss Halsa claimed Friday that she wanted to convert to Judaism. “I love Jews,” she told interrogators. “Even at the Fatah camp they called me a ‘Jew lover.’ I had a blood transfusion and I have Jewish blood in me so I want to convert,” she said.
Miss Halsa said the four terrorists left Beirut for Frankfurt in a Lufthansa German Jet, bearing arms and explosives in special girdles. They then stayed at a hotel in Brussels, where they boarded the Sabena jet, seizing control of It between Vienna and Tel Aviv
They had no intention of blowing up the plane, Miss Halsa said; they wanted only to scare the Israelis into giving in to their demand for freedom for captured terrorists. “It was a great show,” she remarked. The terrorist added that the four had used forged Israeli passports to board the Sabena Jet.
Funeral serviced were held for the two slain terrorists in Beirut yesterday although their bodes are still in Israel. Several thousand men and women marched behind empty coffins draped with Palestinian flags.
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.
