Adam resident after terror attack: 'It could have been a killing spree'

In the aftermath of the attack, soldiers went house to house on the edge of the settlement to make sure that no one else had infiltrated the community.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: JULY 27, 2018 10:25
The victim of the terror attack in the Adam settlement, Yotam Ovadia, 31, and the scene of the crime (photo credit: COURTESY/TOVAH LAZAROFF)
The victim of the terror attack in the Adam settlement, Yotam Ovadia, 31, and the scene of the crime
(photo credit: COURTESY/TOVAH LAZAROFF)
Daniel Nadav walked out of his house to investigate what he believed was a neighbor’s brawl and found himself in the middle of a terror attack.
If not for the quick reaction of his neighbors, Nadav said, “it would have been a killing spree.”
The terrorist was later identified as Mohammed Yusuf, 17, from the village of Kober. He had passed a Beduin encampment on his way to the settlement, whose members understood that he was suspicious and tried to stop him.
They alerted the Adam community, but not before Yusuf had managed to jump over the security fence and make his way into the settlement.
Nadav was in his home, at the end of a small cul-de-sac on a street that was more like a long driveway on the edge of the Adam settlement when the attack occurred.
“I was home. You see the lights? That is where I live. I heard screams. I walked out. At first I didn’t understand what was happening,” Nadav said.
He continued one or two homes down the small street and saw Yusuf, who was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, stabbing the neighbor in his yard.
The struggle took place literally on the man’s doorstep.
In the dark, Nadav uses his cell phone to show sprinkles of blood that splattered onto the small stone wall by the man’s home and on the street. The terrorist first stabbed a man who then fell near a car, Nadav said, as he pointed to the blood splattered vehicle that was still parked on the street.
Nadav also had a photograph of the victim, lying on the ground, with a bloody white shirt.
Then a neighbor came out of his home to help and Yusuf also stabbed him.
That is when Nadav walked up to them and suddenly understood he had interrupted a terror attack.
“Had I known, I would have grabbed an iron bar or something but I was unarmed,” Nadav said.
“The terrorist saw me, understood that I had come to help, and he ran after me with a knife,” he explained, adding how he beat a hasty retreat in the direction of his home.
The terrorist followed suit, but when he understood that it was a dead end, he stopped, turned around and ran back out to the main street, lined with one family homes.
There Yusuf saw another man, who, like Nadav, had left his house after he heard the screams. He stabbed him, too, but only injured him lightly.
Yusuf's third stabbing victim had a gun and shot at him. He fell down initially but then got back up “to stab someone else,” Nadav said.
However, a driver who observed the attack, hit Yusuf with his car and then another neighbor shot at him from across the street and killed him.
Just down the road of the popular pedestrian street there is a children’s park, Nadav explained further. This could have ended very differently.
When he spoke to The Jerusalem Post, it was hours after the attack, but he still stood at the scene of the attack telling the story to whoever passed by.
In the aftermath of the attack, soldiers went house to house on the edge of the settlement to make sure that no one else had infiltrated the community of over 5,000 people located a short distance outside of Jerusalem in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.