Friends mourn Hadas Malka, stabbed to death near Old City, as ‘a true Wonder Woman’
Hadas Malka, 23, the Border Police officer stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant in a terror attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday evening, had sent a final selfie to her friends just minutes before the attack, wishing “Shabbat Shalom to my loving friends.” Those friends on Saturday remembered her as loving and fearless — a “real-life Wonder Woman,” said one.Netanyahu demands PA condemn deadly Jerusalem attack
Staff Sergeant Malka was a resident of Moshav Givat Ezer in central Israel. She will be laid to rest on Saturday night at 12:30 a.m. in the southern city of Ashdod. She leaves behind parents and five siblings, three sisters and two brothers.
Heartbroken friends on Saturday recalled how they heard about the attack and tried to message her, as they did every time there was an incident in Jerusalem where she served, but this time she did not reply.
“I woke up from a nap and my mother told me there had been an attack in Jerusalem. I said how can there have been an attack? She just sent us a message,” Nofar Sarusi told the Ynet news site.
“Every time there was an attack in Jerusalem I would SMS her to see if she was okay and she would answer,” Sarusi said. “Yesterday she simply didn’t answer.”
The friends spoke of how Malka had been in the navy, but wanted to be a combat soldier and transferred to the Border Police where she did the rest of her mandatory military service and then extended it 15 months ago and became an officer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday demanded that the Palestinian Authority condemn the terror attack in Jerusalem by three Palestinians in which Border Police officer Hadar Malka was stabbed to death.Abbas’s Fatah slams Israel for killing 3 Palestinians carrying out fatal attack
“The Prime Minister demands that the Palestinian Authority condemn the attack and expects the international community to do so too,” a statement from his office said.
The statement came after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party condemned Israeli forces for shooting dead the three attackers.
In a statement late Friday, Fatah called the deaths of the three assailants, who attacked at two locations near Jerusalem’s Old City, a “war crime.”
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman responded bitterly to the Fatah stance, saying that it “shows there is no partner (for peace) on the other side.”
Liberman praised Malha, 23, who tried to draw her weapon and fought with her assailant as he was stabbing her, for the “determination and courage” with which she acted. She was “an inspiration to all of us,” he said.
Fatah, the political faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Israel for killing three Palestinians who killed Israeli police officer Hadas Malka and injured four others in a stabbing and shooting terror attack in Jerusalem on Friday.
In a statement, Fatah called the deaths of the three assailants, who attacked at two locations near Jerusalem’s Old City, a “war crime.”
All three of the assailants were members of Palestinian terrorist organizations, according to both Israel’s Shin Bet and Hamas.
Fatah “condemns the war crime carried out by Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem against three Palestinian teens,” spokesperson Osama al- Kawasme said in a statement. Fatah added that “the international community’s silence emboldened Israel to further spill the blood of Palestinians.”
The three West Bankers, armed with an automatic weapon and knives, carried out near simultaneous attacks at two adjacent locations. Two attacked a group of police officers at Zedekiah’s Cave with an automatic weapon and knives, and a third stabbed Malka a short distance away at Damascus Gate.
The 23-year-old staff sergeant died of her wounds at Hadassah Hospital in Mount Scopus. Four other people were lightly and moderately injured in the attack — including a policeman and two East Jerusalem Palestinians. Some reports said the gun used by the attackers jammed, preventing further casualties.
The attackers were identified by the Shin Bet internal security agency as Bra’a Salah and Asama Atta, both born in 1998, and Adel Ankush, born the following year. They were shot dead by security forces as they carried out their attacks.