Eliyahu Kay was a recent immigrant from South Africa, who served in a paratroop unit during his military service. He was living in Modiin and working as a tourist guide at the Western Wall when he was felled by a terrorist’s bullet.
His killer, a teacher who turned up every morning at a Muslim school on Temple Mount, never came under suspicion as a terrorist. He was able to lay his genocidal plans in secret, except for sending his wife away to Jordan three days earlier to save her from the coming turmoil. And indeed, when police arrived at Shoafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem to detain suspected collaborators at his place of residence, they were met with a fiercely hostile riot. “We are still at war,” a young Palestinian shouted to an Israeli broadcaster. “Hamas is everywhere.”
Hamas headquarters in the Gaza Strip were quick to acknowledge Shahidam as one of its leaders in Jerusalem and laud him as “a martyr in the continuing battle for driving the foreign conqueror out of the holy city.” Hamas added: “Our young men will never surrender until our land and holy places are liberated.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad added its voice to praising “the act of heroism performed in Al Quds [Jerusalem].”
