Mercaz HaRav massacre
| Mercaz HaRav Massacre | |
|---|---|
  The attack site
|
|
| Location | The Mercaz HaRav yeshiva at Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem, Israel |
| Coordinates | 31°47′16.15″N 35°11′48.54″E / 31.7878194°N 35.1968167°E |
| Date | 6 March 2008 8:36 pm – 8:56 pm (GMT+2) |
|
Attack type
|
Mass shooting, massacre, school shooting |
| Weapons | AK-47 |
| Deaths | 8 students and 1 perpetrator |
|
Non-fatal injuries
|
11 |
| Perpetrator | Lone Palestinian assailant (Alaa Abu Dhein) |
| Defenders | Yitzhak Dadon and David Shapira |
The Mercaz HaRav massacre, also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting, was a mass shooting attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel, after which the gunman himself was shot dead. Eight students and the perpetrator were killed. Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition.
The attack began at 8:36 p.m. local time and ended about twenty minutes later. According to survivor Mijael Mendelson, the attack lasted about 14 minutes. Mendelson reports he saw the time before the shooting started and shortly after knowing the gunman was dead. The attacker was stopped by long-time Mercaz HaRav student Yitzchak Dadon and off-duty Israel Defense Forces Captain David Shapira who fought back using their personal firearms.
The attack was praised by Hamas and, according to a subsequent poll, was supported by 84 percent of the Palestinian population, the highest result showing support for violence in 15 years, which the pollster concluded was the result of recent actions by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. It was condemned in official statements by various countries around the world.
The attacker, Alaa Abu Dhein, age 26, from the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem, who, according to his family, worked as a driver for a private company that made deliveries to the yeshiva, entered the building carrying a box concealing an AKM along with several magazines, later firing as many as 500–600 rounds.
Less than twenty minutes after he started shooting, the attacker was shot by a part-time student, Yitzhak Dadon (40). Dadon said that he waited on the roof of a nearby building with a rifle. "He came out of the library spraying automatic fire ... the terrorist came to the entrance and I shot him twice in the head."
Capt. David Shapira, an officer in the Israel Defense Forces who was living nearby but not on duty at the time and was a graduate of the yeshiva, heard the gunfire, entered, and shortly thereafter confirmed that the shooter was dead at the scene. A police patrolman who arrived at the scene before Shapira, remained outside in an effort to "freeze the situation" by preventing civilians from entering instead of making contact and stopping the shooting.
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Wikipedia