Posted on 09/21/2002 6:37:05 AM PDT by Tancred
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - An Israeli woman whose name means "luck" said she had her third brush with death when she got off a Tel Aviv bus after spotting a man who looked like a Palestinian suicide bomber about to strike.
The woman, named Mazal, told Israel's Channel 1 television the blast Thursday tore through the number 4 bus on the coastal city's tree-lined Allenby Street seconds after she disembarked. It killed at least five people.
"I was sitting in the middle section, and he was near the door," said Mazal, who declined to give her last name. "He was wearing a black blazer and jeans, and he had a mustache and black hair.
"The blazer was buttoned up and I thought: 'In this heat'?"
"He was standing right behind me. All he did was look around all the time -- right, left, up, down. He had a very strange look on his face."
She said she disembarked at the stop just before the blast.
Mazal said she warned the driver before getting off, but "he took no heed." According to other witnesses, the driver died in the blast, which wrecked the front part of the bus.
Police called the attack a suicide bombing, a tactic favored by Palestinian militants in the uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any Palestinian group.
Thursday's close call was nothing new for Mazal -- which is Hebrew for "luck."
"It's the third terrorist attack I've been through," she said, her hands shaking as onlookers crowded around. "I was in one in Jerusalem half a year ago and the one in (Tel Aviv mall) Dizengoff six years ago. Talk about trauma."
Imo, she did all that she could do...
This womans story is a prime example of what we should be doing at every airport(and restaurants?) in the United States...if we had the guts to take the heat from the PC crowd.
She did warn the driver.
a.cricket
Did she, I hadn't heard, thank you for the clarification.
Mazal said she warned the driver before getting off, but "he took no heed." According to other witnesses, the driver died in the blast, which wrecked the front part of the bus.
From her description the driver was either not very observant or in on it.
adjusts tinfoil hat with stylish copper lining
a.cricket
LOL, Nice spin on tinfoil hat.
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