Tragedy, Miracle as Terror Hits Biblical Heartland

BEIT HORON, Israel -- Israel is beefing up security in Judea and Samaria because Jewish towns have become targets for Palestinian terrorists.

But in the midst of many tragedies, CBN News found a bright spot, a recent incident described as a miracle after a grocery store owner intervened.

Beit Horon is the third Jewish community hit by terrorists who breached security and killed two women in separate attacks. The first victim was Dafna Meir, a mother of six, murdered defending her home in Otniel. Then, 23-year-old Shlomit Krigman was murdered in Beit Horon.

That incident, however, could have been much worse. The security fence surrounding Beit Horon has kept the 2,000 residents of the community safe until now.

In a well-planned attack, two terrorists jumped the fence, hurled pipe bombs at residents, and then headed for the grocery store.

"One of my workers see the attack outside, run into the shop and scream 'Terrorist, they kill a lady outside,'" grocery store owner Mordechai Shalem told CBN News.

Shalem took action to avert an even bigger tragedy. A security camera captured his heroic effort.

"I take the carriage and when I get to the door I see in front of me two guys with knife screaming Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar [Allah is greater] and try to stab me," he recalled. "And just what run in my head, it's don't let them get in. I have in the shop something like 10 children and ladies…so it's a miracle that they stop outside."

Yigal Dilmoni, a leader of the Jewish communities here, says Israel needs to do more to keep the settlements safe.

"To stop the terror we have to get inside their towns, catch them and find them, like the United States doing after 9/11," Dilmoni said.

More than 400,000 Israelis live in 150 communities in what's known to many as the "occupied West Bank."

In a statement some believe excuses the terrorists, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon indicated he understood the Palestinian attacks because of what he called Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Dilmoni disagrees.

"You have to kill the terrorists, but not to understand them," he said. "And if man like him [Ban Ki-moon], that's in charge of the peace on the world, understand the killer and the murderer, I think he's the partner to the murderer."

Founded in 1977, Beit Horon is built where the biblical town of the same name was situated. Resident and first responder Yehudit Tayar says the town is part of the divine inheritance of the Jewish people.

"This land has belonged to us since the Bible," Tayar told CBN News. "Yes we were evicted, thrown out of our land, very brutally, dispersed among the nations, but all through the thousands of years every prayer, no matter the Jew is in the world, he talks about our return to Zion, our eternal homeland."