Michal Altin, her children and her mother were on their way back from the memorial event for her father at the Mount of Olives on Thursday when they were nearly killed by a group of Arabs. The vehicle was attacked by a group of Arabs wearing masks who broke the window and began destroying the car. Miraculously, all family members escaped unscathed. "We were on our way back from the Mount of Olives, we were in a car. We saw a group of Arabs with a Palestinian flag and black masks on their faces. There were people of all ages, from seven to more than thirty," Altin said. "When we saw them, my son, who was sitting behind me, said to me, 'Mommy, U-turn, Mommy, U-turn, Mommy, U-turn,' but before I could make the U-turn, they saw us and ran towards us and attacked the vehicle with stones and hammers, kicking and punching the vehicle. They smashed the windows, mine and my son's, and behind the trunk, they broke the mirrors and headlights." She said that her son, two daughters, and her mother were in the car with her at the time, and eventually she succeeded in performing a U-turn and escaping before anyone was physically harmed. The incident that took place on the outskirts of the Arab neighborhood at the exit of the Mount of Olives, near the Chabad plot and the Arab hospitals. "This is not the first time I have gone this way. In the last two years, I have gone up to my father's grave several times, nothing like this has ever happened." Altin said that her family was traumatized by the violent attack, and they now "talk and recreate the incident with the family, friends and the community, to get everything out", and at the same time they are waiting for the response of the police, whom they contacted immediately after the incident to file a complaint. "During the attack, my daughter was on the phone with the police. They sent a car and took us to the Shalem station outside the Old City, where we filed a complaint." "It is a big miracle that we escaped completely unscathed," she said. "My daughter said she thought there was no way we were going to get out of there alive. 24 hours later I realized that it could have ended with us in intensive care or worse. They didn't do it for fun, to give a few kicks to the car. It was with hammers and stones with the aim of killing." The police opened an investigation, took fingerprints from the frame of the vehicle and from one of the hammers that remained inside the vehicle. Michal and her family are awaiting the results of the investigation.
