Moshe Cohen, brother of Maaleh Adumim shopping mall security guard Tzvika Cohen who was attacked with a hatchet last Thursday night, is critical of the fact that his brother and the rest of the security guards had not been furnished with weapons. Only now, after his brother paid the price, the guard staff has been beefed up and given weapons.
Speaking to Israel Radio on Sunday, Cohen said that the terrorist has been employed at the mall for seven months, knew his brother personally and remained after hours with permission, to prepare the store where he worked for the Friday shoppers (Friday is Israel’s 2nd day of rest in addition to Shabbat). In fact, to get at Tzvika Cohen, the terrorist, Saadi Ali Abu Hamed, 21, asked his intended victim to open one of the doors for him, then hit him from the back with a hatchet, injured him severely, took his keys and walked off.
Hamed was captured on Sunday morning, after a family member had turned him in. He is now being interrogated by the Shabak, but has already connected himself to the crime during his initial interrogation.
Meanwhile, Deputy director of Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem, Dr. Asher Schulman, told Israel Radio that Cohen’s situation is stabilizing, he responds to stimulation and the doctors are considering waking him up from his induced coma. Considering how vicious were the hatchet blows Cohen received—as seen on the CCTV video that made its way to YouTube—even this bit of recovery seems like a miracle.
Moshe Cohen and the rest of Tzvika’s family were very upset that the clip made it to the social networks. Indeed, watching the unarmed, utterly shocked guard trying to survive the hatchet attack is heartbreaking. At one point the terrorist actually slips on his victim’s blood before he regains his composure and continues to shower his merciless blows.
Hamed’s boss told Walla that he spoke to the would be terrorist that day and there was nothing unusual about him. “Even when I left him at night everything seemed normal, I wouldn’t have imagined something like that happening.” He believes Arabs are going to have a hard time coming back to their jobs at the Maaleh Adumim mall — and there are several hundreds of them, from the nearby villages as well as from eastern Jerusalem.
“Because of what happened there’s hatred,” he said. “People will boycott them, they will not let the Palestinian workers come back here. We gave them respect, but this is the limit. Something like that is inconceivable.”