Wadi al Haramiya sniper attack

Story

Wadi al-Haramiya (Arabic: وادي الحرامية‎‎), meaning 'Valley of the Thieves' is a valley between Ramallah and Nablus on the West Bank.

The IDF was maintaining a checkpoint at Uyoun al-Haramiya (the Wells of Haramiya), near the Israeli settlement Ofra, manned by a reserve company.

Before dawn on the morning of 3 March 2002 the sniper positioned himself under some olive trees on a hilltop overlooking the checkpoint. At 6:40 he opened fire at the three soldiers manning the checkpoint and the driver of a civilian car, which had stopped at the checkpoint. All four were killed within minutes. Nine Israeli soldiers were inside a barracks building. Platoon commander Lieutenant David Damlin and the unit's medic Yochai Porat emerged from the building to locate the shooter and assist the casualties. Both were shot dead. The remaining soldiers decided to stay inside the building and called for reinforcements.

A patrol jeep that arrived with reinforcements immediately came under fire. The reserve company's sergeant, Avraham Ezra, was killed and several of his men were injured. The rest of the casualties occurred when randomly arriving civilian cars stopped at the checkpoint. Two civilian settlers and an IDF officer were killed. Tha’ir Hamad claimed in an interview (obtained by unknown means from prison) that the settlers were armed and that one of them took aim at him but that he shot first. He also claimed that he refrained from harming an Israeli woman and her children, shouting at her in Hebrew and Arabic to leave the area.

The Israelis never succeeded in locating the sniper's hiding place even after dispatching a helicopter. He had intended to continue shooting but when he fired his 25th bullet the old rifle exploded, making it useless. He was therefore forced to give up and returned to his village. Seven soldiers, two of them officers, and three civilian settlers were killed in the 25-minute attack. Another six Israelis were wounded, four of them seriously.

al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti praised the attack. "Blessed be the fighting hands of the heroes, who dealt these blows to the army of occupation," he said.

The Israeli authorities assumed that the shooter was a highly trained marksman from an elite unit, such as Force 17. The average Palestinian militant could not be expected to hit 14 people with 25 bullets. Mossad also contacted European and American security agencies to help identify the killer. Mossad suspected that a member of the Irish Republican Army could be responsible for the act.

On 3 October 2004 Tha'ir Kayid Hamad was arrested. He was sentenced to 11 life sentences.

Haaretz veteran military correspondent Ze’ev Schiff called the incident “[o]ne of most stinging and bizarre fiascoes” of the IDF in the Second Intifada: “the entire incident can only be described as a massive blunder and a disgrace for the IDF. No excuse can be accepted. This sort of incident cannot be blamed on the lower ranks.” A series of investigations were carried out with the apparent purpose of exonerating the senior officers and putting the full blame on the soldiers at the checkpoint. The scandal led to a major overhaul of rules for IDF probes.

Fatalities

IDF soldiers

1. Capt. Ariel Hovav, 25, of Eli.
2. Lt.(res.) David Damelin, 29, of Kibbutz Metzar
3. 1st Sgt.(res.) Rafael Levy, 42, of Rishon LeZion
4. Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Avraham Ezra, 38, of Kiryat Bialik
5. Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Eran Gad, 24, of Rishon LeZion
6. Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Yochai Porat, 26, of Kfar Saba
7. Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Kfir Weiss, 24, of Beit Shemesh

Civilians

1. Sergei Birmov, 33, of Ariel.
2. Vadim Balagula, 32, of Ariel.
3. Didi Yitzhak, 66, of Eli.