Palestinian cell indicted in attempted kidnapping of Yael Shahak and 8-year-old daughter, now she recalls incident: ´Look in his eyes changed and he became crazed´

Some two months ago Palestinians attempted to kidnap Yael Shahak and her daughter, who was eight years old at the time, when they were driving to the Beit El area in the West Bank. On Sunday, after the Palestinians accused of the attempted kidnapping and of other attempted kidnappings were indicted, Yael recalled the incident.

"One of them took a wrench which he used to shatter the car´s front windshield. At that moment I understood that they were going to kill me and my daughter that we would come out of this dead or handicapped."

One night in March, Shahak and her daughter were on their way home from an event in central Israel. "We got onto the Beit El access road and a few minutes later, after one of the bends in the road, I noticed a car standing at the side of the road," she recalled.

"I thought they were drunken Arabs or something similar. I honked my horn and then they zigzagged in front of me. The spot was one where you could not bypass or evade the car in front of you, so I drove behind them and tried to avoid them."

But the Palestinians would not give up. "They saw me backing up so they also backed up. That´s when the penny dropped that I had a problem," she said. "I tried to escape but they wouldn´t let me move to the side of the road. Eventually they stopped and stood right in front of my vehicle.

"I saw four men in front of me, I was frightened by the fact that they were all men – that was before I even paid attention to whether they were Arabs or not."

One of the men walked up to Shahak´s window while the other three surrounded the car. "The terrorist who came up to my window signaled me to open it.

"The doors and windows were locked so we conducted a kind of negotiation, with him trying to convince me to open the window and me trying to tell him that I want to continue on my way. It was all done with hand signals and looks. Then at some point the look in his eyes changed and he became crazed."

´Ludicrous and insane´

That is when the violence started. "After several blows to the windshield, with all the glass flying at me, he suddenly stopped. At the time I didn´t understand why and it was only after the fact that I realized that they saw a car coming from the direction of Beit El."

"The terrorists fled, but from the shock I refused to open my window even for the people who came from the other direction. Of course I realized they were Jewish, but I was still in shock and couldn´t open the window."

The occupants of the other car alerted the security forces. "They realized that night that this was not another carjacking, rather it was an attempted abduction or something like it," Shahak added. "It is ludicrous and insane to be in a situation where everything is business as usual and then within moments you´re in a situation where someone wants to murder you.

"I will never forget the look on the terrorist´s face, who in less than a minute became an animal looking to murder us. Luckily, my daughter was asleep, and she only woke up when the windshield was hit, but she didn´t have to endure the trauma like I did. That night she cried with me because she was reacting to my response."

There were nine members - Palestinians from the Ramallah area – in the terror cell which was headed by Mouhmad Ramdan (22) of al-Bira.

Some of the terrorists, who are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are being held in Israel while others are in the custody of the Palestinian Authority. (Copyright 2012 © Yedioth Internet 05/21/12)