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Four Patrons Shot Dead at Point Blank Some in the Back
Thursday, June 09, 2016 | Israel Today Staff
In a late night shooting at the popular Sarona market in the heart of Tel Aviv, 2 terrorists committed a shooting spree against patrons that were out to enjoy themselves.
4 patrons of the popular restaurant Max Brenner were killed in cold blood on Wednesday night, while another 16 injured were treated in Tel Aviv hospitals. Of the 5 victims still hospitalized, one is in serious condition and the rest in various conditions.
The Sarona Market complex is adjacent to the IDF Headquarters and the offices of the Israel Ministry of Defense.
Scene of the terror attack in the aftermath of the shooting.
The terrorists, dressed in suits, joined patrons dining in the restaurant, ordered food and without warning pulled out improvised semi-automatic weapons and started shooting in all directions.
The terrorists fled the scene, one of them still armed, in the direction of Carlebach street. One was neutralized next to the Cinemateque cinema and the cinema was evacuated, while police and security forces started a search for the second terrorist.
A short while later the second terrorist was arrested. The suspects are cousins and residents of the Judean village of Yatta, south of Hevron. They are being interrogated by Israel Police and the Shabak - Israel General Security Services.
In the meantime celebrations broke out in East Jerusalem, Gaza strip, and West Bank upon hearing of the news of the terror attack. In Yatta, the home village of the muderers, a spontaneous march took place with fireworks being set off and candies were handed out to passersby in celebration.
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The CNN headlines reported on the terror attack and remarked that Two "terrorists" were arrested. The tabloid resorted to referring to the perpetrators of the attack as "terrorists" in inverted commas. The fact that, at the time of reporting, 3 people had been murdered in the attack was relegated to small print below one of the photographs.
The BBC headlines simply called the terror attack "Tel Aviv Shooting". At least they did include that 3 people had been killed in the "shooting incident" but left the interpretation of the "shooting incident" open to the interpretation of their readers.
Sky News headlines correctly called the attack a "Mass Shooting In Tel Aviv" and once again the description that it was "a harsh terror attack" was kept to the fine print below one of the photographs.
The Guardian headlines simply referred to the murderous attack as "Three Dead in Tel Aviv Market Shooting". The report went on to report that the "two shooters were shot and disarmed by police" without any mention that it was a terror attack.
Screenshot of The Guardian headlines
Many of the other mainstream tabloids headlines downplayed the severity and perpetrators of the murderous terror a ttack in Tel Aviv!
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Don't let adversity steal your hope. (iStock photo )
I've spent the past week sitting by my father's bed in a hospital in Georgia. He fell while doing yard work (no 89-year-old man should be trimming weeds) and he hit his head on the concrete walkway behind his house. He has a fractured rib, 12 stitches in the back of his head and two bruises on his brain.
After a week, he still has no idea where he is.
On Monday, he said my name. On Tuesday, when I asked him the name of his church, he answered correctly. But when a nurse asked him who I was, he told her I was his grandson.
We don't know what the next day holds for my dad, or the next month. Hundreds of people are praying for his healing, and there are signs that his motor skills and brain function are slowly coming back online. But whether he pulls out of this and goes back to driving his car, or whether he ends up in months of rehab, or if he dies, I've had to face the reality that we all get old, life is terribly fragile and death is inevitable.
We don't do a good job preparing people for death and dying. I never had a class on it in school. We rarely even talk about it in church until someone has a funeral. It's easy to develop a notion that life goes on and that we will never get old.
Yet the Bible doesn't dance around the topic of death. In Genesis, the word "death," "die" or "died" appear 68 times. It reminds us: "And Adam died," "And Abraham died," "And Isaac died." One entire chapter, Genesis 23, is devoted to the death and burial of Sarah. On and on it goes, like the somber toll of a bell. Death is a cold, dreary specter that is an undeniable part of our existence on this side of eternity.
King David talked about walking "in the valley of the shadow of death" (Ps. 23:4a). He could write those words because he faced life-and-death crisis regularly. Only those who have lost a loved one or cared for a sick person know how tangible that shadow of death really is. It weighs on us like a thick fog. It makes us feel lost and alone.
I have felt that fog this past week. I felt it when I had to restrain my dad from pulling out his IV tube. I felt it when I asked him a simple question and got a blank stare. I felt it when I heard another patient in the hospital scream in pain.
Yet David was sustained in that dark season. He was not overcome. He wrote: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me" (v. 4). We have the promise of His presence no matter what is going on around us.
If you are walking through the valley right now because of a death, an accident, a serious medical condition, a financial crisis, the loss of a job or any other tragedy, stand on God's immovable promises and let His words bring security to your soul. These four promises have meant the most to me during the past seven days:
Nahum 1:7 says, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him."
"God is good, all the time," has become a religious cliché. But it is a powerful truth if you let the words sink in. When we walk through dark times we are tempted to doubt God's goodness. Don't let the devil accuse God of abandoning you; run into the Lord's strong arms and let Him remind you of His faithful care.
John 16:33 says, "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
It does not matter what the world throws at you. Jesus said we would face trials and tests, but those words are followed by a comma, not a period. He calls us to face our difficulties with faith. He has already overcome every possible problem we could face. Knowing this will give you supernatural peace.
Philippians 4:6-7 says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
When we face a crisis, our first reaction is to worry. But the antidote to worry is prayer. Share your fears and anxious thoughts with Jesus and let His peace override them. His peace will shield you from the darkness of despair.
John 11:25-26 says, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die." This is the ultimate source of all our joy.
Death is not final when the person who dies is a Christian. Jesus removed the sting of death; it has been swallowed up in Christ's ultimate victory. Don't let death or the threat of death steal your hope.
Let God's promises guide you like signal lights through your dark valley. The future is bright on the other side.
J. Lee Gradyis the former editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. He is the author of several books including 10 Lies the Church Tells Women, 10 Lies Men Believe, Fearless Daughters of the Bible and The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale. You can learn more about his ministry, The Mordecai Project, atthemordecaiproject.org.
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The Lord shall open for you His storehouse of goodness, the heavens, to provide precipitation for your Land in its time, and to bless all your handiwork.
Moses tells the Children of Israel that as soon as they enter the Land, they should assemble and read from these beautiful blessings in the Torah, as a reminder of all thegood that will come upon the Land when we fulfill God's commandments. Now you can get a gorgeous necklace representing God's blessings on "all the handiwork" of the Land, on sale for 20% off!
An Israeli rabbi is working to bring back an essential element of the Temple service, the return of which was predicted by a great Jewish sage to be the last step before the Messiah.
Cherry season in northern Israel by Zev Rothkoff. Mount Hermon is seen reflected in a natural water reservoir called Birkat Ram ("high pool"). According to the Talmud, Birkat Ram was one of three underground springs in Israel that opened up during the Flood of Noah.
Yesterday's photo by Igor Farberov showed the ancient port of the city of Jaffa, out of which modern day Tel Aviv has grown. The Old Jaffa Port is where Jonah set off in the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale.
I really enjoyed the Ein Gedi video today. Needing to rest and be still and the video really ministered to me. I did not get to see Ein Gedi when I was in Israel so this was a wonderful treat. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how much I enjoy your emails. I have kept the one with the video of the young man singing Psalm 23. I look forward to seeing pictures taken in the Land. My heart is there and so are my prayers.- Sharon Norris
Shalom. Many thanks for interesting articles and God bless. Niel
Foreign capital flow to Israeli assets hit a record high of $285.12 billion last year, nearly triple of what this figure was in 2005, Bloomberg News reported last week. And while the Israeli economy has been slowing as of late, it is still performing better than that of the United States and other Western nations. Israeli companies, especially high-tech startups, have also become very attractive targets for foreign investors.
The Bloomberg report is consistent with an analysis written for The Wall Street Journal two years ago by David Rosenberg, economic editor of the Israeli daily Haaretz.
The true story is that after nearly 10 years of campaigning, the global BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement has not had the slightest economic impact. Its victories have consisted of coaxing a handful of pop stars and academics to cancel appearances in Israel, and winning empty, sanctimonious declarations of support from the likes of student governments, cooperative grocery stories and leftish church groups.
Far from being isolated, Israel’s exports are reaching record highs and it attracts billions of dollars in foreign investment.
In the weeks that Israel was supposedly under a boycott siege, Japan’s Rakuten agreed to buy the start-up Viber for $900 million and Ireland’s Covidien sealed a deal to buy Given Imaging for $860 million. China’s Bright Food was in talks to buy control of Israel’s biggest food maker Tnuva, and IBM, Lockheed-Martin and ERM all announced plans to open research and development centers in Israel. The Jewish state became the first non-European member of the nuclear research consortium CERN and was admitted as an observer to the Pacific Alliance, a free-trade bloc of five Latin American countries.
A group of multinational firms including Ford, IBM, GE, Tyco, GM, Singtel, PayPal, Yahoo, ProSieben, and Kimberly-Clark came to Tel Aviv at the end of 2015 to find suitable startups to invest in. That year, Israeli startups netted nearly $5 billion in Venture Capital-backed exit deals, a ten-year record.
The BDS campaign attempts to delegitimize and isolate Israel in an effort to advance Palestinian interests, and many of its leaders have publicly affirmed that they seek Israel’s destruction. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, an opponent of the two-state solution, said in 2014 that Palestinians have a right to "resistance by any means, including armed resistance,” while leading activist As’ad Abu Khalil acknowledged in 2012 that "the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel.”
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