They’re My Soldiers…I Had to Handle It’

The Fellowship | January 9, 2017

A young female IDF soldier looking off into the distance while standing in a parking lot. — They're My Soldiers...I Had to Handle It'

After tragedy unfolded in Jerusalem when a terrorist armed with a large truck attacked a group of IDF soldiers, Israeli emergency services worked to save lives. But the IDF’s blog tells the story of a young lieutenant who witnessed the attack and helped put an end to it:

Lt. Maya, 22, of Haifa, is the team commander of the company of cadets who were targeted in the attack. “I got on the bus to put away some gear and get my jacket, and I was standing right at the front of the bus, and from there I saw everything. The attacker drove at a very, very high speed, and drove into a big crowd of cadets who were standing shoulder-to-shoulder.”

As Lt. Maya watched the attack unfold, she knew that she had to do everything in her power to stop it. As an officer, it’s her duty to protect her soldiers, and as a soldier herself, it’s her job to save lives. That meant taking charge in the moment. “I felt like I had to take responsibility. They’re my soldiers, they’re my company, and as part of that sense of responsibility, I knew I had to handle it.”

“I knew that it was a terror attack when he started to reverse,” Lt. Maya says. “But even before that, when he drove into the crowd, I already put my magazine into my gun. When he reversed, I knew. I heard gunshots from our side, one or two bullets. I stood at the entrance of the bus, and I shot at the window of the truck, on the driver’s side. I had help from soldiers on the other side, who were handling it with a cool head.” In seconds, it was over. Once the terrorist was neutralized, She and her fellow soldiers tended to the wounded.

She says that if she weren’t there, she knows that her fellow soldiers would have done exactly what she did to prevent more people from getting hurt. “It wasn’t just me that handled it, and if I wasn’t there, there were a lot of other people with me who could have done it. People were helping and acting from other directions and I wasn’t alone in it for a second, I really wasn’t…”