Kol hakavod to Rabbi Erez Bar-On of Itamar

(IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority terrorist was shot dead late Monday afternoon as he attempted to stab two people at a bus stop near Shiloh, 20 miles north of Jerusalem. The armed civilian who put an end to the attack is a school principal from the town of Itamar.

After 5:30 p.m. on Monday afternoon, an Arab man approached the Shiloh Junction bus stop and began talking to two people, an adult and a teenager, who were waiting there. After a short conversation in English, which aroused the suspicion of the two, the 16-year-old young man decided to move away, behind a concrete barrier at the bus stop while the older man placed his hand on his personal weapon.

At that point, the attacker suddenly pulled out a six-inch knife and tried to stab the adult Israeli. In response, the would-be victim drew his personal weapon and shot the terrorist, knocking him off his feet and wounding him. When the terrorist then reached into his shirt, the civilian interpreted the motion as a possible attempt to detonate an explosive vest and he shot again, this time killing his attacker. It later turned out that the PA resident was reaching for a second, concealed knife.

Military and police forces alerted to the attack arrived at the junction and radioed for an emergency medical response unit. The responding Magen David Adom (MDA) team pronounced the terrorist dead at the scene.

The quick-thinking civilian who killed the attacker was identified as Rabbi Erez Bar-On, the principal of the Hitzim High School in Itamar, near Shechem. Rabbi Bar-On is a graduate of the Hesder yeshiva in the town of Har Bracha, on Mt. Gerizim in Samaria.

IDF officials had nothing but praise for Rabbi Bar-On in the wake of the attempted stabbing. "The citizen acted properly, in a decisive and fitting manner," army officials said in a statement to the press, "and his actions showed preparedness and proportionality."

I imagine those "IDF officials" would like to "act properly, in a decisive and fitting manner," if only the politicians would allow it.