‘Terrified, experiencing flashbacks’: Terror victim inadvertently aided Ma’ale Adumim shooter

Tzvika Cohen was shocked to learn that the Palestinian man to whom he gave a ride home was the terrorist who wounded six people in a shooting incident Tuesday.

By World Israel News Staff

A 54-year-old man who was critically wounded in a terror attack seven years ago and still suffers from his wounds unknowingly helped another terrorist to commit violence against innocent people in the same city.

A Palestinian terrorist hit Tzvika Cohen, who then worked as a security guard in a mall, in the head seven years ago. Although he survived, Cohen’s injuries changed his life forever. Since then, he suffers physical and mental disabilities and requires a caretaker, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Cohen, a resident of Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, where both attacks occurred, was in a coma for three weeks at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, where staff struggled to save his life. He returned home after almost six months, but he was never the same.

Now a volunteer at a local community center, Cohen was asked by a Palestinian custodian on Tuesday to give his son a ride home, saying he wasn’t feeling well. The son, 20, later named  as Mohannad Muhammad Suleiman al-Mazra’a, was recently hired as cleaning staff at the request of his father.

After arriving at his residence in the nearby village of al-Aizariya, al-Mazra’a apparently gathered his weapons and returned to the Israeli city, where he shot and wounded six people, two of them seriously. An off-duty border policeman who was about to get a haircut at a local barber shop shot and killed the terrorist.

Cohen became distraught upon learning that he inadvertently assisted the terrorist, his brother told The Jerusalem Post. “He’s terrified and experiencing flashbacks from his past trauma.”

Following Tuesday’s attack, Palestinians with work permits in Ma’ale Adumim have been suspended indefinitely.