This past motzei Shabbos after the awful bomb in the center
of Yerushalayim's entertainment district, ZAKA's volunteers
displayed maximal efficiency and competence as they went
about their rescue work on the site of the terrorist attack
on the Ben Yehuda mall in Jerusalem. One of their first steps
was to set up a special tent, recently acquired by the
organization, to record initial findings. Bodies were brought
there and then transferred to the Abu Kabir Institute for
Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv.
Moments after the news of the attack was received, scores of
chareidi volunteers arrived on the scene and began to
evacuate the injured and to engage in the difficult task of
identifying the dead and gathering the bodies and their
parts. Top ranking police officers at the site after the
attack praised the volunteers for their dedicated work.
The moment the police inform ZAKA's headquarters about a
terrorist attack, ZAKA's "emergency grapevine" goes into
action, and all of its members receive urgent messages on
their beepers and Mirs devices to arrive at the site of the
attack as quickly as possible.
Once there, the volunteers divide up into two groups. One
scours the area, while the other sets up the tent in which it
conducts the initial identification of the victims.
"This was one of the worst attacks Israel has known, if not
the worst," the volunteers, who stationed themselves in every
possible corner of the mall, said on motzei Shabbos. "The
large screws, bolts and metal scraps which were in the bombs
of the suicide terrorists caused very serious injuries to the
victims. Those who were killed on the spot also suffered very
severe injuries which caused their deaths."
The bodies of the terrorists were also seriously mutilated.
It was impossible to identify anything due to the vast amount
of metal scattered by the bombs.
"I have seen many terrorist attacks in my life, " one top
ranking ZAKA volunteer said. "But I have never seen such an
attack. Due to the huge amount of explosives and the many
metal scraps in the bombs, the attack was very deadly."
One of ZAKA's top volunteers criticized the hundreds of
people who milled around the site of the attack on motzei
Shabbos. "When we began to scour the area for the wounded and
the dead whom we might not have evacuated, we encountered
scores of people who had managed to penetrate the region of
the mall, despite the heavy police guard," the volunteer
related
"I had to shout at people to leave the site since they were
disturbing our rescue efforts and avodas hakodesh. But
instead of complying with our request, they began to berate
me for preventing them from viewing the spectacle. In
addition to the disturbance these people cause, they also
jeopardize themselves. In the attack on motzei Shabbos it was
clear that the hundreds of people who crowded in were saved
by a miracle from the exploding car. One of ZAKA's members
was injured while he was preparing for work. If more
onlookers had been in the area when the car exploded there
would have been many casualties, chas vesholom"
"I want to tell the public at large, and chareidim too, many
of whom also flock to the scene after a large attack: You
have no business in such places. You are disturbing the
avodas kodesh of ZAKA and the rescue squads and are
endangering your own lives."
