PA fires Palestinian man who aided slain rabbi

A Palestinian who offered assistance at the scene of a July terrorist attack that killed a rabbi and injured his wife and daughter, has been dismissed from his public service job in the Palestinian Authority.

J., whose full name has not been made public, was the first of two Palestinians who provided assistance to Rabbi Michael Mark, who was shot by terrorists while driving on Route 60, an intercity road across Israel, Judea and Samaria between Nazareth in the north and Beersheba in the south. The Palestinian man helped Mark’s children, who were in the car during the attack, escape the overturned vehicle.

“We saw an overturned car — I stopped my car on the right [side of the road] and we got out. I tried to open the door, but the car was completely locked. All the doors were locked in the front and the back,” J. told Channel 2 in a July interview.

“I saw two children inside screaming and asking me to help them. I put out my hand and for two minutes, I tried to open the door to get to the children who were suffocating in the car. I think that if they stayed there a little while longer, those children would have suffocated in the car. Out of the shock she felt, the young daughter spontaneously grabbed me and jumped onto me. I immediately put my hand on her head and spoke to her in Hebrew, of course. I told her, ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, I will help you. Don’t worry’,” he said.

“I did what I did out of humanity. These are children. There were children inside. There were people inside. I didn’t hesitate at all,” he added.

Another Palestinian man, Dr. Ali Abu Sherech from the Hebron area, also stopped at the scene within minutes of the attack and provided medical care to the family. Both men initially believed they were at the scene of a vehicular accident, and did not realize it was a terror attack until security forces arrived.

“As a doctor, I am committed to saving lives, whether Jewish Muslim or Christian” Sherech said. “I examined the father, and he had already died. The mother was suffocating because of the seat belt that had wrapped around her neck, and she suffered gunshot wounds to her upper body.”