1989 Tel Aviv–Jerusalem Bus Attack

The attack occurred during the First Intifada and targeted an Egged bus traveling from Tel Aviv toward Jerusalem.[2] The attacker, Abed al-Hadi Ghaneim, was a 25-year-old member of Islamic Jihad from the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.[3] He boarded bus 405 in Tel Aviv and sat near the driver.[1][2]

The bus followed Highway 1 through the Jerusalem hills, passing near Neve Ilan and the nearby communities of Kiryat Ye’arim and Telz-Stone.[3][4] On July 6, it was crowded with passengers, including people traveling for work, returning from errands, and serving in the military reserves.[3][5]

Near Neve Ilan, Ghaneim attacked the driver and pulled the steering wheel sharply to the right.[3] The driver initially resisted and stabilized the bus, but Ghaneim braced his feet against the windshield and again forced the vehicle toward the roadside.[3] The bus left the highway and tumbled approximately 100 yards down the slope before catching fire.[3]

Some passengers were thrown from the vehicle, while others remained trapped inside when it burned.[6] The driver and Ghaneim were both thrown clear and survived; some of the passengers trapped in the bus burned to death.[7] Sixteen people were killed, including two Canadians and an American.[1] Accounts giving the same death toll report either 17 or 27 wounded.[1][6]

Students at the nearby Telz-Stone yeshiva heard screams and rushed to the scene to give first aid.[6] Rabbi Elazar Gelbstein led students who helped recover human remains, working alongside Arab residents of Ein Rafa and Ein Nakuba.[3] The rescuers assisted survivors and sought to ensure proper Jewish burial for those who had died.[1] People attempting to reach passengers trapped in the burning bus risked their own lives during the rescue effort.[8]

Among the survivors was Simon Fahima, who was traveling to his first day at work and suffered serious injuries.[5] Reservist Netanel Tzuberi escaped from the bus minutes before it caught fire.[5] Dalia Cohen’s daughters, Kinneret and Haya, had been returning home after errands in Tel Aviv; Kinneret was killed.[5] Another victim was 64-year-old Nahum Mizrahi, the father of Akiva Mizrahi.[5]

Ghaneim received treatment at an Israeli hospital after surviving the crash.[6] On October 30, 1989, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced him to 16 life sentences for murder, hijacking, and terrorism, together with 24 additional prison terms of 20 years each.[6] He admitted carrying out the attack before being sentenced.[9]

For survivors, the consequences extended well beyond the immediate rescue and hospital treatment.[5] Fahima later said that his recovery required nearly two years, while Tzuberi underwent two and a half months of rehabilitation.[5] Bereaved relatives and survivors were again confronted with the attack’s consequences in 2011, when Ghaneim’s name appeared among prisoners selected for release in exchange for Gilad Shalit.[5]

Ghaneim was included on a list of 477 Palestinian prisoners scheduled for release in the exchange’s first phase.[5] He was released to Gaza on October 18, 2011, as part of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.[6] The full exchange involved 1,027 Palestinian prisoners and secured the return of Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held captive.[1]

The release elicited sharply different responses from people whose relatives had been killed on the bus.[5][6] Singer Ruhama Raz, whose sister died in the attack, supported the exchange despite her bereavement.[1][6] She said: “There is no price for our soldiers. I say this with great pain, tremendous pain, and perhaps there are families that are angry with me.”[1]

Dalia Cohen expressed both relief that Shalit would return to his mother and an inability to rejoice, saying that doing so felt like betraying her daughter Kinneret.[10] Describing the impending release of the man responsible for her daughter’s death, she said: “I feel like she is screaming, her blood, her ashes are crying out to us and I cannot do anything to prevent it.”[10] Nevertheless, she also said that she would vote for the deal to help bring Shalit home, despite the pain of that decision.[5] Other bereaved relatives and survivors felt unable to support the release.[5]

The response of the Telz-Stone yeshiva students became an important part of the history of ZAKA, the volunteer organization involved in emergency response, search and rescue, disaster assistance, and accident prevention.[1] Their experience helping survivors and caring for the dead prompted the creation of the organization.[1] Yehuda Meshi Zahav was among the students who assisted at the crash scene and later founded ZAKA.[6]

The rescue combined immediate aid to the living with the recovery of victims’ remains for burial.[1][3] Students and residents of nearby Arab communities worked at the same scene, and the effort included both first aid and the difficult task of recovering human remains from the wreckage.[3][6] The attack’s place in ZAKA’s origins connects the events on Highway 1 with the subsequent development of a volunteer rescue service.[1][6]

A memorial to the 16 victims was erected near the attack site on Highway 1, between Neve Ilan and Kiryat Ye’arim.[4][11] It stood approximately 10 meters tall and contained 20 tons of iron and copper.[4] Its form included a large, heavy iron coil.[11] Families reported that metal thieves repeatedly vandalized it over the years before it was uprooted and stolen in December 2012.[11]

The loss of the memorial remained a concern for bereaved relatives years afterward.[12] Aziz Tzerafi, whose wife Miriam was killed in the attack, protested the failure to address the stolen memorial during a Memorial Day ceremony in 2021, heckling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[12]

The attack was Israel’s worst terrorist attack since the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre.[1] It also appears in official records of attacks affecting victims overseas: an American government listing identifies the event as the July 6, 1989 attack on bus 405.[13] Archival material concerning the attack includes a record referring to Rita Levine as a victim of the bus 405 attack.[14] A separate 1989 archival series concerns a deadly attack on a public bus on the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway, although that catalog entry does not identify the bus number or perpetrator.[14]

The attack has been described by some observers as the First Intifada’s first suicide attack, although Ghaneim survived.[1] That designation concerns the characterization of the act rather than the perpetrator’s actual death.[1] The subsequent prisoner exchange was also controversial, with opposition among many Israelis and differing responses within bereaved families.[5][6]

Casualty totals vary across accounts: detailed reports give 16 killed, while a government summary gives 14.[1][15] Reported injury totals include 17 and 27.[1][6] A discussion held on July 7, 1989, offered preliminary figures of 43 people aboard, 14 killed, 27 injured, and two unaccounted for.[16] Those figures formed part of an early, secondhand account rather than a confirmed final accounting.[16] The principal narrative here follows the detailed accounts identifying July 6 as the date, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the direction of travel, and 16 as the death toll.[1][3]