A major disaster was averted in downtown Jerusalem today when police sappers neutralized a 12-kilogram bomb hidden in the trunk of a car. Painted on the bottom of one side of the car were the words “Fatah” and “Sabra and Shatila” and a verse from the Koran stating “Never forget God.”
The car was discovered in time by an unidentified woman who called the police and reported that a white Opel Kadett, parked in a street near the major Hamashbir department store, “looked suspicious.”
Within minutes police patrol cars and bomb disposal units arrived on the scene, which is close by the always-crowded Ben Yehuda pedestrian shopping mall. Ascertaining that this bomb scare was real, the police closed off roads, evacuated nearby buildings, and urged people living slightly farther off to open their windows in a case of a blast.
The sappers then moved in to neutralize the charge, having decided that the car was too dangerous to move in its primed state. Alongside the explosives, the sappers found a five-kilogram gas cannister and two kilograms of large nails. Injuries would inevitably have been extensive to innocent passers-by had the device exploded.
The car was then towed off for further examination while other police squads rounded up Arabs — some for questioning and some to forestall any violence against them by incensed Jewish youth.
The police superintendent, Nitzav Arye Ivtzan, appointed a crack investigation team to study the incident and this team will work in close harmony with other elements of the security forces.
By early evening the hero of the day — the woman who alerted the police — was still anonymous. She had so far not responded to repeated police and media requests to make herself known — and enable the authorities and the general public to thank her for her display of good sense and good citizenship.
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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.
