A Story that "shows the love G-d has for the Nation of Israel."

Rabbi of Migron, Rabbi Itai Halevy, found himself under a hail of bullets from two terrorists, yet incredibly escaped harm.

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By Rabbi Itai Halevy

The rabbi's car after the attack.

Itzik Altheim

The story I will tell is not just my personal one. If it were, I would not publish it. This is the story of the wondrous love God has for the Nation of Israel. It is the story of a nation that is building its life in its homeland, and receiving special Godly supervision, on its paths to redemption.

This is what happened:
On Thursday evening, I was invited to a celebration marking the completion of the five books of the Pentateuch by sixth grade students at the Psagot elementary school. After the dinner ended, I drove from Psagot toward Migron. I was alone in my car. It was 8 p.m. and I left Psagot with the intent of reaching the "daf yomi" Talmud lesson at Migron that would begin 15 minutes later.

At the downward slope before the sharp turn near the pools, I noticed that I was alone on the road, with no car ahead or behind me. I kept driving and passed the turn. After it, at the point where the high ramps at the sides of the road end and there is a grove of trees on the right side, two terrorists were lying near the road, about 2-3 meters away.

Once I passed them they rose and began to fire from both weapons at my car. Since the range was very close, the shooting was accurate and it was aimed at the front windshield and the right front window of the car. The first bullets passed through the car, from right to left, in front of my face, in the space between me and the front windshield, and smashed the left window at my side.

Apparently, one of the bullets also hit the central rear view mirror and sprayed shards from it all around. Wondrously, the car's systems were not damaged, and the car kept on going past the terrorists, even as the terrorists kept firing at the windows.

The terrorists ran quickly to the center of the road and kept firing at the car through the rear window. There is an entry hole of a bullet in the rear window, and an exit hole at the top of the front windshield.

As the firing went on, I realized that I was in the midst of a shooting attack and wondered how it was that I felt no pain or injury. As the firing stopped, I pressed down on the gas pedal to get away.

Once I got out of the range of the terrorists, I called the Binyamin emergency hotline while driving, to report the event – so that they would block the road and prevent additional cars from entering the range of fire, and so that they could begin to chase after the terrorists.

I kept going until I reached Migron, where people from the local council's security department, the police and the ISA came and questioned me about what happened. We checked the car and found about 10 bullet entry holes, mostly around the front right window of the vehicle. I drove back to the scene of the attack with the security forces, to recreate what had happened. More than 20 bullet casings, from Kalashnikov rifles and a handgun, were found there. Some were right in the center of the road. These appear to be the ones fired after the car had passed the terrorists' ambush.
Thank God, I emerged unscratched.

Blessed be God, the God of Israel, who performed a miracle for us in this place~

"Were our mouth as full of song as the sea, and our tongue as full of joyous song as its multitude of waves, and our lips as full of praise as the breadth of the heavens, and our eyes as brilliant as the sun and the moon, and our hands as outspread as the eagles of the sky and our feet as swift as hinds - we still could not thank You sufficiently, HaShem our God and God of our forefathers, and to bless Your Name for even one of the thousand thousand, thousands of thousands and myriad myriads of favors, miracles and wonders that you performed for our ancestors and for us."

May God continue to show us His wonders, in this time, as in the days past.