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Uri Avnery - Hijacking of the Ashkelon -Tel Aviv bus (310/315)

111 views · Published 11 July 2017 · 4:09 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · News & Politics

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Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and peace activist. He was editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine "HaOlam HaZeh" and founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. [Listener: Anat Saragusti; date recorded: 2017]

TRANSCRIPT: There was the time four young Arabs took control of the bus on route 300 from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon, and the army managed to halt the bus. According to standard procedure, the army began to negotiate with the hijackers to wear them down and to gather forces for the assault. The IDF had done this several times, almost always with disastrous results. I say 'disastrous' because you endanger − on airplanes and on buses, too − you endanger the lives of passengers for reasons of honour. Would it be such a disaster if you did exchange prisoners? So what? No one has ever died from it. But Israel can never, almost never – and here the justified 'almost' – never agrees because to do so would be a national insult. And so the bus was stopped and negotiations started, long and tedious negotiations. By then, reporters and journalists had arrived. Anat Saragusti was there on behalf of "HaOlam HaZeh" – at that time she worked as the lead photographer at the newspaper. The soldiers stormed the bus and during the assault two of the hijackers were killed. The army claimed that all four were killed. It was the Sabbath. I was at home, but I live very close to the editorial office where we had a photographic laboratory. Suddenly, I got a phone call from Anat Saragusti asking me to come immediately to the newspaper and in the lab, in the darkroom, she showed me a picture and said she thought it was one of the hijackers and he was alive. He was surrounded by soldiers , along with the Head of Central Command, and they were taking him away alive, while the army claimed he was killed next to the bus or on the bus immediately at the time of the release − that is, he was a casualty of the assault. We developed the picture, looked carefully and sure enough, even though the picture is not very sharp or clear, it is clear enough to see that the Head of the Central Command is there with several security personnel standing around and in the middle, there's one of the hijackers. "HaOlam HaZeh" − with the usual eagerness to uncover the truth and refute lies − wanted to publish. But there is censorship, military censorship.

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