Friendly Fire May Have Upped Casualties in Be'er Sheva Attack

Arutz Sheva ^ | 20/10/15 | Tova Dvorin

[Eleutheria5]

Many of those injured in Sunday night's shooting attack at the Be'er Sheva Central Bus Station may have been wounded by friendly fire - not from the terrorist himself, a senior police officer said Monday night.

Two people were killed in the attack and nine others wounded - several seriously - when 21 year-old Israeli Arab Muhaned Al-Okabi shot a soldier, grabbed his automatic weapon and opened fire on a group of police standing in the station. He was later shot dead by security forces.

Those killed in the attack included IDF soldier Omri Levy, whom Al-Okabi shot, and Eritrean national Haftom Zarhum - who was beaten to death after the crowd mistook him for a second terrorist.

But the chaos may not have ended there.

"We're looking into the possibility that our own forces fired on other forces, including at guards, soldiers, and police officers," the senior police officer stated to Walla! News, on condition of anonymity.

.....

[papertyger]

And what are we to take from such an admission?

[nicepaco]

They will probably sort it out before the people in Waco do.

[Netz]

I guess we are to question the Israeli special forces and police's ability to deal with a complex, terror situation with tens of innocents in the crossfire.
This is not a fair criticism though because Israel, more than any other nation in the world has to be on a war footing 24/7 and deal with scenarios that no civilized, Western nation should have to deal with.
We should withhold our judgment but the world loves to judge Israel with an unfair measuring stick.

[JPX2011]

And what are we to take from such an admission?

Two thoughts. First thought is we shouldn't take anything from it. I don't believe in the knee-jerk reflex to engage in navel-gazing in these types of situations as if there is some sort of systemic failure to recognize and rectify. Arab terrorist kills an Israeli soldier, grabs his gun and opens fire on the public and some people were wounded and/or killed, not by the terrorist but in response. What more is there to know? It inevitably leads to the conclusion that there is a policy fix which is always a liberal conclusion. It's just as bad when conservatives try to Monday morning quarterback the thing. "Oh if I was there, I would've done this because I have this training or I know this about deadly situations."

Second thought: as unfortunate as it may be I'd rather hear of people being wounded/killed in the crossfire between the good guys and the bad guys than what occurs here in our gun-free zones and everyone is just slaughtered with no resolution until the bad guy blows his own brains out before the cops get through the front door.

[papertyger]

I see news as something that exists to inform the public. But precisely of what is this particular news to inform us?

I can see little beside providing positive feedback to prospective terrorists on more effective methods of practicing their terrorism.

[Eleutheria5]

Dunno. Honesty is a good thing, especially in war time. It’s also a morose relief that Jews are capable of retaliating with mob violence and spontaneously beating someone to death. I hope that one day a vehicular jihadist gets his car rolled and torched by an angry mob of Jews. But really, they should have launched a full investigation with due process, and then had the mob violence/irony, I guess.

[CIB-173RDABN]

“MAY”

Whenever I see “may” in a headline I mistrust the story.

The story may be true, or it may be a pack of lies.

[Eleutheria5]

It’s what the police and IDF are saying, not the headline. They investigated, and so far all they have is a may, which means that either that is the case, or they have no definite conclusion yet.