The Washington Post
MEGIDDO, Israel — Mickey Harel’s co-workers at the Egged bus line used to josh him about his three close calls with suicide bombers and terrorist attacks.
"It is no longer a question of being close," the bus driver said. "Today, one finally caught me," Harel said as he recovered from bruises and scrapes suffered when his bus was bombed as it drove northeast of this coastal city.
Suicide bomb and gun threats have long made bus passengers nervous across Israel. For drivers like Harel, it is an occupational hazard. This was the first time his own bus was hit, but he witnessed three other attacks in the past six months.
Once a gunman dressed as a soldier opened fire at a bus station in the northern town of Afula, along one of Harel’s routes, and killed three bystanders before he was gunned down. In March, Harel drove near Umm el-Fahem, on the same route his bus followed Wednesday morning, when a suicide bomber struck a bus driving just ahead. Seven passengers died. And a month ago, Harel witnessed a suicide bomb attempt that fizzled at a junction not far from Hadera.
With his record of narrow escapes, Harel became an instant curiosity Wednesday. Reporters flocked to Hillel Yafeh Hospital to broadcast his tale nationwide.
"My friends said, ‘You know, you seem to attract this trouble but you always escape,’ " he said, as he lay on his hospital bed. "I felt like I was sliding through. I never thought it would happen to me."
His No. 830 bus, from Tel Aviv to Tiberias, was struck by a moving car bomb at about 7:15 a.m. Harel had noticed nothing untoward in the traffic. "I keep good eye all around. I always said that some day, someone would try to ram a bus with a car bomb," he said.
At first, he thought his bus had been bumped from behind. "It was like a push, then suddenly, the bus was up in the air and rolling over. I grabbed the steering wheel hard. All the windows blew out," he recalled.
He scrambled out and into a macabre landscape. "The bus was mainly full of soldiers," he said. "Some were, like, stuck to the bus. Some were on fire. I tried to pull a few off and to drag away survivors. It was terrible."
Parts of the bus flew over the barbed wire fencing of Megiddo prison. Harel mused that, "There were probably some suspected terrorists inside the prison. It’s ironic we should get blown up right outside."
He knew many of the soldiers by name; they regularly traveled to bases northeast of Hadera.
Like many Israelis, Harel had adopted personal defense mechanisms to ward off the dangers of a bombing. He eyed new passengers suspiciously, especially if he felt they had what he considered to be Arab looks: dark hair, thick eyebrows and olive skin. "If I thought they looked funny, I made them show the insides of their coats," he said. "I never let luggage on board. It had to go below."
Harel, 60, fought in two Israeli-Arab wars, in 1967 and 1973. His three sons are in the army. He is divorced.
"Of course, people think it is strange that I got through two wars, and then get wounded on a bus," he said. "It’s getting to the point where I see as much action on the roads as I did in combat."
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