21-Dec-18: After the terror attacks, the focus moves on as the quiet struggle of the victims continues

Shira and Amichai Ish-Ran speak to reporters from hospital
five days ago [Image Source]. Their baby did not survive the cowardly attack.

Based on reports in the past few hours from several news sources, including Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post, here are some updates on the Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks of the past ten days.

Amichai Ish-Ran, who took three bullets in the leg as a civilian victim - alongside his wife - of a  drive-by shooter at a bus stop near the entrance to the Israeli community of Ofra ["09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem"] is thankfully doing well enough that he was released from Shaarei Zedek Medical Center yesterday (Thursday).

His wife Shira, who suffered critical injuries in the attack, is said to be "steadily recovering". She had further surgery on Wednesday and this is reported by the hospital to have been successful. The baby boy she was carrying in her womb when they were shot died four days after the attack after being born under emergency conditions by Caesarian section.

An IDF soldier, 21-year-old Naveh Rotem, who was critically injured this past Friday when stabbed and head-bashed with a rock by a Palestinian Arab at a military post outside the Israeli community of Beit El is thankfully doing much better. The attacker who fled the scene, prompting a manhunt, later turned himself in.

The soldier, had been taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in life-threatening condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. The hospital said in a statement that Rotem had been treated by multiple medical experts over the past week, and quoted neurosurgeon Dr. Iddo Paldor as saying he was returning home “in good condition, strong and smiling.” Rotem will undergo followup treatment. His parents said in a statement that they were “happy to thank all the hospital staff,” saying they had “felt we were in good hands..." [Times of Israel]

Shira Sabag, a civilian seriously injured in last week’s Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack ["13-Dec-18: Another lethal Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack Thursday"] at a bus stop near the small Israeli community of Givat Assaf, is said to be improving though still hospitalized at Shaare Zedek.

An IDF soldier, Netanel Felber, whose family made aliyah to Israel from the US a decade ago, is still reported to be critically injured and fighting for his life and suffering gunshot wounds to his head in the attack, He has undergone multiple surgeries at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. Two of his army colleagues, Yovel Mor-Yosef and Yosef Cohen, were killed in the attack.

It was reported yesterday (Thursday) that the main perpetrators of both the Ofra and Givat Assaf attacks are brothers, As'am Barghouti, 32, and Saleh Omar Barghouti, 29, clansmen and residents of the same village (up until he was incarcerated) of prominent Palestinian Arab convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti. (There's some background here: "18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?") Salih Barghouti was shot last Wednesday in a village near Ramallah as he resisted apprehension by Israeli security forces. The attack allegedly carried out by As'am Barghouti happened the following day. There is an ongoing manhunt for him.

It was also reported yesterday for the first time that this As'am Barghouti was released from an Israeli prison in April 2018 after serving an 11-year sentence.

We personally sat through the 2003/4 terrorism trial of Marwan Barghouti in Tel Aviv (he was convicted and has been in prison since then). Beyond the homicides for which he was convicted, we learned that Barghouti personally laid out $500 [source] for the making of the explosive-filled guitar case that was brought to, and exploded inside, Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria destroying it on August 9, 2001 and killing fifteen innocent people including our daughter Malki. 

The Sbarro bombmaker, the inventor of that grotesque explosive-and-nails-filled guitar case, was another Barghouti clansman, Kuwait-born Abdullah Barghouti. About him, we have written numerous times. Here's one piece: "20-Jun-13: Abdullah Barghouti, terrorist, bomb-maker, killer of 66 innocents, has some demands".

When churchman Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner,
nominated convicted murderer and terrorist Marwan Barghouti for the same
award, he tweeted the news with this photo of himself with Mrs Marwan
Barghouti [Twitter Source]

And yet one more clansman, Bilal Yaqub Barghouti, a senior Hamas operative, was personally sheltered by Marwan Barghouti in his home when Bill Barghouti was on the run from the Israeli security forces because of his involvement in the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria (he was later convicted for his part). Bilal Barghouti said for the record that, during his stay there, "he saw a number of weapons, and when he left the house Barghouti armed him with a gun for his use."

Unlike most of the Sbarro Massacre plotters, Bilal Barghouti still resides in an Israeli prison cell. On being sentenced in 2003, he said: "Thank god. I regret that I did not kill even more people than I did kill". (More background here: "24-Aug-18: What aid funds handed to the Abbas regime ($1 million and growing) have done for savages who kill Jews".)

And this: Marwan Barghouti, whom the Nobel Prize-winning social activist church-man Desmond Tutu odiously nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2017, is arguably an unindicted accessory-after-the-fact to the Sbarro murders. (It would be nice if someone were to forward this post to Archbishop Tutu in South Africa.)

May all the victims needing a full and rapid recovery get it.