Car-ramming victim’s son sues phone giant for employing terrorist

The son of an Israeli man killed in a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem last year is suing the Bezeq telecommunications company, which employed the Palestinian terrorist at the time of the lethal attack.

Schneor Kirshavski’s father, Yeshayahu, 60, was killed and another two people were injured when East Jerusalem resident Alaa Abu Jamal used a Bezeq company car to ram into a crowd at a bus stop on the capital’s Malchei Yisrael Street in October 2015.

After the attack, Abu Jamal got out of the car and tried to stab the wounded with a butcher’s knife before he was shot dead by a security guard.

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Kirshavski told Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court that Bezeq should have fired technician Abu Jamal a year before the attack, after he took to social media praising his cousins for their involvement in a separate attack on a synagogue in the capital’s Har Nof neighborhood in October 2014, Channel 2 News reported Thursday.

Footage of Alaa Abu Jamal stabbing passersby in a Jerusalem terror attack on October 15, 2014. The attack is praised in the song “Lovers of Stabbing” while the clip plays in the background. (screen capture: YouTube)

During that deadly attack, Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal killed four men at prayer with a gun and meat cleavers and then shot a Druze police officer who tried to stop them. He died of his wounds later that day. The two attackers were killed at the scene.

The two terrorists from Jabel Mukaber who carried out the attack on the Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem, November 18, 2014 (screen capture: Channel 2)

Kirshavski was suing for monetary compensation from the telecom giant. The amount has not been specified but if granted, could run into hundreds of thousands of shekels, Channel 2 said.

Bezeq said in a statement that the company had not been aware of Abu Jamal’s social media comments and had seen no signs of criminal behavior before the attack. When it has suspicions, the company is advised by and acts according to the instructions of the security forces, the statement said.

The car-ramming attack on October 13 came shortly after two Palestinians carried out a combined shooting and stabbing attack on the No. 78 bus in Jerusalem, killing two Israeli men — Haviv Haim, 78, Alon Govberg, 51. American-Israeli Richard Lakin, 76, was critically wounded in the attack in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood and died some two weeks later of his injuries.