2001 Immanuel Bus Attack

The attack occurred during the Second Intifada, a period of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians and security forces. December 2001 saw a concentrated wave of Palestinian attacks, of which the Immanuel ambush was one of the deadliest.[5]

Dan bus No. 189 was traveling on the road between Yakir, Revava, and Immanuel when it was attacked. A later Ynet feature described it as arriving from Bnei Brak with dozens of passengers.[4][2] Ynet describes Immanuel as an ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement in Samaria. Contemporary reporting identified the bus as unarmored, a detail later relevant to litigation over assurances about bulletproof bus service.[4][6]

At approximately 18:00 on December 12, 2001, Dan bus No. 189 was traveling between Yakir, Revava, and Immanuel when attackers struck roughly 500 meters before Immanuel's entrance gate.[1] The unarmored bus was hit first by a powerful roadside bomb near its rear, shattering parts of the interior.[4] Bus driver Yitzhak Hariri, though injured in the blast, kept driving in an attempt to move the vehicle out of the firing zone.[4]

Hariri later told police that a tremendous explosion struck beneath the rear of the bus, causing its interior to break and collapse inward. After hearing gunfire and realizing that the bus was under attack, he continued driving to leave the firing zone.[4] The three attackers also opened fire on passenger cars traveling ahead of and behind the bus, causing three cars to overturn and injuring those inside.[4]

Two of the attackers fled the scene. The third remained, firing at the bus and surrounding vehicles for several minutes before advancing from a nearby cliff and shooting at close range into the stricken bus.[4] A police jeep ran him over, after which Border Police officers shot and killed him. He was found carrying an M16 rifle, a pistol, numerous ammunition magazines, and combat gear.[4] Gunfire directed at rescue forces arriving at the scene delayed the evacuation of the wounded, and some of the evacuation proceeded under fire.[4]

Among the passengers was 42-year-old Esther Avraham, who had traveled to Bnei Brak that day with her 19-year-old daughter to buy clothes for a family wedding. They left at around 16:00 to return home, where their family expected them before a Hanukkah gathering that evening. Esther was killed at the scene; her daughter, seated beside her, survived.[2] Esther's son Shimon, then 11 years old, recalled that after his mother did not return, his father told him to recite Psalms. He said he understood that something had happened even before anyone told him his mother had died.[2]

Ten Israelis were killed in the attack, with more than twenty others wounded; six of the injured were reported in critical or very serious condition.[4] The dead included three members of the Tzarfati family—father Yaakov and his sons David and Hanan—who were killed together.[4][1]

The Jewish Virtual Library records the ten victims as Yair Amar, 13, a resident of Immanuel; Esther Avraham, 42; Border Police Chief Warrant Officer Yoel Bienenfeld, 35; Moshe Gutman, 40; Avraham Nahman Nitzani, 17; Yirmiyahu Salem, 48; Israel Sternberg, 46; David Tzarfati, 38; Hananya Tzarfati, 32; and Ya'akov Tzarfati, 64.[1] It identifies their home communities as Immanuel, Moshav Tel Shahar, Betar Illit, Ginot Shomron, and Kfar Saba.[1]

Hamas's armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility in an announcement broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.[4] Fatah also claimed the attack.[1] A Congressional Research Service report attributed the December 12 ambush to Hamas and noted that Hamas carried out two simultaneous suicide bombings in Gaza the same evening.[7]

Israeli authorities identified Hussam Badran, described as the head of Hamas's military wing in the northern West Bank, as responsible for a list of attacks that included the bus near Immanuel; that attribution was presented as Israel's account.[8] Israel also charged Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat with being "directly responsible" for the wave of attacks on December 12; the Congressional Research Service presented this as Israel's accusation rather than an independently established finding.[7] In the aftermath, the Israeli government declared that Arafat had "made himself irrelevant" and broke off contact with him.[5]

Survivors and bereaved families pursued civil litigation in Israeli courts in the years that followed. In 2004, Yaakov Tzarfati's wife Deborah and daughters Rebecca and Edith filed a 100-million-shekel lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, and Hamas, alleging that the defendants had assisted terrorist attacks and that Arafat had personally encouraged and helped fund them. These were claims made in the lawsuit, not findings established by a court.[9]

A separate suit was filed in 2005 in Jerusalem District Court by members of the Siton family, who were injured in the attack on route 189. The plaintiffs named the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Council, Marwan Barghouti, and local Immanuel authorities as defendants, alleging failures to prevent the attack and, against the local defendants, that residents had been misled about when bulletproof buses would operate on the route. In July 2014, the court dismissed the suit, finding that the necessary evidentiary link between the attackers and the Palestinian Authority or Barghouti had not been established and that the local council had not acted negligently.[6]

A separate terrorist attack on Dan bus No. 189 near Immanuel took place on July 16, 2002, in which nine people were killed and 20 injured in a combined bombing and shooting.[10] Four organizations claimed responsibility for the 2002 attack, which was apparently carried out by Hamas.[10] The two incidents are distinct events: the December 2001 attack targeted a bus traveling on the road between Yakir, Revava, and Immanuel, while the 2002 attack targeted a bus traveling from Bnei Brak.[10][4]

Hamas television later broadcast a reenactment of the 2002 attack. Reports by JNS and Israel Hayom referenced the 2001 attack as a separate incident in which ten Israelis were killed.[11][12]

Sources differ on the precise casualty count. The Jewish Virtual Library's detailed victim list names ten killed and reports approximately 30 injured.[1] The Congressional Record records eight killed and 30 wounded.[3] CAMERA gives a toll of eleven killed and 30 wounded,[13] while a separate Jewish Virtual Library table lists eleven deaths and 27 wounded.[14] The approved sources therefore preserve conflicting casualty totals.

The rationale offered publicly for the attack came from an anonymous telephone caller to Reuters, quoted in an Encyclopedia.com entry, who said: "This is in response to the recent killings by the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip." The caller was not independently identified.[15]