In 2022, Israel registered some 5,000 attacks perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists, who murdered 31 people and injured 415, official government’s data shows.
Eleven people were assassinated in the month of March, making it one of the bloodiest months in recent history. Another 27 were wounded. In addition, October was the month with the highest number of attacks – 401, not including rock throwing. They included two assaults, two vehicular attacks, 32 arson attacks, 46 small-arm attacks, 60 pipe-bomb and 258 fire-bomb attacks. They resulted in numerous people killed and wounded.
The wave of terrorism has not ceased in 2023. Since the beginning of the year, 14 innocent people have been killed and many more injured in major terror attacks.
On Sunday, two brothers, Hillel Menachem and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv, 22 and 19, were murdered by a terrorist who shot them as they were driving in their car from their home to the yeshiva (religious studies seminary) where they were enrolled in Samaria.
“We have suffered a huge slap in the face from God,” their mother said. “We are trying to find the good things and the grace that in the fact that we were prepared, that we had a family Shabbat, that we had good conversations with the boys yesterday, that we took family photos. God sends us graces. Even with this painful blow, He sends us graces.”
At the beginning of February, another two siblings, Asher Menahem Paley and Yaakov Yisrael Paley, 8 and 6, were assassinated by a Palestinian terrorist ramming into a bus stop in Jerusalem. The two little boys were about to travel with their father to spend Shabbat out of town. The father was critically injured in the attack, which also took the life of 20-year-old Alter Shlomo Lederman, a newly-wed. Another Paley brother, 10, was only mildly injured, but left to deal with the everlasting psychological trauma of seeing his two siblings murdered in cold blood and his father rammed over.
Over twenty years ago, David Rubin and his son were also victims of a terror attack. Since then, he has made supporting other survivors one of his life missions.
At the end of 2001, Rubin, a former mayor of Shiloh, was driving home from Jerusalem with his three-year-old son, when the car was ambushed by three Fatah terrorists and he was shot in the leg by a gunman with an AK-47 assault rifle. The boy was hit in the head causing a skull fracture and internal bleeding in the cerebellum. Miraculously, the bullet missed his brain stem by one millimeter and he survived.
“Thank God, my son is physically okay now,” Rubin says. “But he is still dealing with the experience emotionally to this day.”
Transformed by the experience, Rubin wanted to build something positive after the event. In 2004, he established the Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund in order to help children living in the biblical heartland to recover from the traumas that sadly have emerged from the frequent terror attacks. This magnificent organization supports therapeutic, educational, and recreational programs.
“We saw so many people coping with the horrific after-effects,” he added. “The children in Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria, have suffered disproportionately from terrorism, and we know how to heal them, but we need the support of those who want to stand with Israel and its children in these difficult days.”
