In a new motivational film, published by Boomerang, the young man and athlete who lost most of his family in a 2002 terror attack, tells how he knows to “always keep forward, because otherwise if I stay in the same spot and I dont move forward and I don’t push myself to the next phase, then there is no reason that I stayed alive.”
On June 20, 2002, a terrorist armed with an AK-47 and grenades entered the Shabo home in Itamar and opened fire, killing Shabo’s mother, Rachel Shabo, and three of his brothers - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12 and Avishai, 5. He also killed a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid.
The terrorist was killed by IDF forces. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
“The first thing that I did after I lost my leg and I lost half my family was to jump into the pool and then I started to play wheelchair basketball,” Shabo explained. “I played professional basketball in Hamburg, Germany. That was one of my biggest achievements in the sport. By today, I have 70 or 80 medals I got from swimming and basketball.”
Shabo lost three-quarters of his leg in the attack. He was first in a wheelchair and then on crutches, though today he has a prosthetic leg. He continues to live in the Shomron.
“I am an athlete, I hate to lose,” he said. “If you want to win and move forward, then it is to say, ‘Although we lost half of our family, we are here, and we raise our kids and the next generation right here, because that is the way to move forward and to show those terrorists and those Palestinians who decided to choose the other way, that is not going to help you.”
He continued, “I think my goal in my life is that I am not trying to focus on the history, I am trying to focus on the present and on the future.”