To answer Israel Matzav’s (and others’) questions: A friend forwarded me a translation of an article from Israel’s Ma’ariv newspaper. The article states that the terrorist spent many hours planning his attack. From the translation:
The preliminary investigation’s findings show that Ala Abu Dheim used to come to the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva by car and watch its routine carefully. In this way, for hours, day after day, he sat and planned the terrible massacre that he perpetrated last Thursday night.
[…] A preliminary investigation shows that Abu Dheim drove of late to the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood in order to park his car near the yeshiva for hours and study its routine. It appears that Abu Dheim reached the conclusion that in the evening the yeshiva is filled with people and active and that he could arrive there easily under cover of darkness. On the evening of the attack, the terrorist set out with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, seven magazines, two handguns and a commando knife. He used his vehicle, a Ford Transit van belonging to his family’s company, Pearl Transportation, which he drove in order to transport pupils from Jabel Mukaber and villages in East Jerusalem.
The terrorist parked the van two hundred meters away from the yeshiva, hid the two handguns and commando knife on his person, cocked the Kalashnikov rifle and hid it in a television carton. At the entrance to the yeshiva, he encountered three students from its youth division, one of whom asked him jokingly: “What, you’ve brought us a television?†The terrorist did not answer, but put the carton on the stone wall, took out the gun and fired at them. He succeeded in killing two of them, but the third escaped. Afterwards, the terrorist entered the yeshiva and began firing at the students while confirming his kills.
The wire services played up this bullshit:
Abu Dheim’s relatives said they did not know of his plot, but were not surprised. He had been transfixed recently by the bloodshed in Gaza, and “he told me he wasn’t able to sleep because of the grief,” said his sister, Iman Abu Dheim.
Looks like Gaza wasn’t the cause. Just the excuse. Not that I expect the AP and Reuters to mention the above facts. Gee, they’d have to have someone read Ma’ariv in Hebrew to find that out. Or maybe talk to the Israeli security services.