Ori Shahak: Yom Kippur War Veteran, POW and Hero
Ori reunited with his family after 8 months in captivity
By: Amichai Farkas
In 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – Yom Kippur – Israel found itself under attack. Both the Egyptian and Syrian armies had encroached on Israel’s borders simultaneously, and within the first few hours of the Yom Kippur War, enemies were making headway on Israel’s northern and southern borders.
On the second day of war, Israeli Air Force Pilot Ori Shahak flew a Phantom fighter jet over Syrian territory. “I had just hit my intended target and was heading back towards Israeli soil,” Ori recalls, “when an Israeli jet was hit with a SAM missile just a few hundred yards ahead of my field of vision,” Within seconds Ori saw the jet’s pilot parachute out.
A Second Attack
Instead of continuing toward safe land, Ori’s courage and compassion for his fellow soldier sprang into action. He circled the skies in an attempt to locate the fallen pilot’s position. “I hoped to call in a rescue team as soon as I could identify where the pilot had landed.” Ori explained. “Yet, as I turned my attention toward finding the pilot’s position, the Syrians managed to get a hit on my plane, which blew out one of its engines.”
Ori quickly shut down the damaged engine and planned to get back home with only the jet’s second engine, when, all of a sudden, he heard his co-pilot scream, “Fire on board!” Those words still ring in his mind today.
“Yalla – Out!” Ori yelled back as he slammed his hand as hard as he could on the eject button. He and his co-pilot parachuted through the Syrian skies for what felt like an eternity, but was in fact only a few minutes.
With a shaky voice, Ori described what transpired after his jet took the hit. “As we parachuted over enemy territory I could hear the Syrian gunfire coming toward us – time stood still, and then we hit ground,” he recalls. Read More » Comments (12) »
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 3:07 PM | Amichai Farkas
U.S. closes embassy in Syria
Bashar al-Assad continues his brutal attack on his own people:
The United States has closed its embassy in Syria and pulled all remaining diplomats out of the country, citing worsening security. The move came as government forces intensified their rocket and mortar assault on the restive city of Homs.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that embassy functions have been suspended and that Ambassador Robert Ford and other staff have left the country. The U.S. had warned last month it would close its mission in Damascus unless Syria’s government addressed security considerations, including the safety of its personnel.
The move further isolates President Bashar al-Assad’s government over its bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters and comes amid more violence across the country.
A Syrian anti-government activist released this video of the scene in a hospital in the city of Homs where the violence has been the worst. It’s heartbreaking. Pray for the people of Syria.
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Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 2:41 PM | Stand for Israel
Violence continues in Syria
Syrian protesters
The latest on the ongoing tumult in Syria:
Comments (0) »The Arab League monitoring mandate expired Thursday night, with Arab foreign ministers due to weigh their next move at meetings in Cairo on Sunday. The ministers are at odds over how to respond to the turmoil in which thousands of people have been killed. An Arab League source said this week Syria might let the monitors stay on, but without any broadening of their mandate.
“They are in a big mess,” a source close to the Cairo-based League said. “They are running out of options.”
Fourteen people were reported killed Thursday, adding to a death toll of more than 600 since the monitors arrived in Syria, where an insurgency is hardening what began as a mostly peaceful struggle against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian rule.
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 5:01 PM | Stand for Israel
U.N.: Syria committed crimes against humanity
(Photo: Reuters)
The United Nations springs into action, recognizing what the rest of the world has known for a long time:
A United Nations commission of inquiry on Syria said on Monday Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape and the government of President Bashar Assad bore responsibility.
The panel, which interviewed 223 victims and witnesses including defectors, called on Syria to halt the “gross human rights violations”, release prisoners rounded up in mass arrests and allow media, aid workers and rights monitors access to the country.
Having acknowledged that “orders to shoot and otherwise mistreat civilians originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the government,” the U.N. has proposed that the way to stop these outrages is … well, they haven’t proposed anything really. Did anyone expect them to?
OK, to be fair, they did unanimously approve Syria’s membership on two U.N. human rights committees. But it’s tough for those of us who live in the real world to see how this will stop Syria from murdering its own citizens.
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Monday, November 28th, 2011 at 11:49 AM | Stand for Israel
Syria massacres 70+ protesters
“Oppression” has become one of those words that is thrown around far too easily by anyone who wants to support his pet cause. It’s the fashion, for example, for anti-Israel activists to accuse Israel of all sorts of oppression against the Palestinians.
Well, just to set the anti-Israel crowd straight – this is what real oppression looks like:
More than 70 people were killed in Syria Tuesday in what observers said was one of the bloodiest days of President Bashar al-Assad’s eight-month crackdown on anti-regime protesters.
A total of 34 soldiers and 12 suspected army deserters were killed in clashes, as well as 27 civilians shot dead by security forces in the regime’s intensifying crackdown.
The “Arab Spring” shows every sign of turning out badly for most of the Arab states whose rulers have recently been ousted. But certainly in Syria, as in those states, there are ordinary citizens who sincerely want democracy, who want to be out from under the heel of dictatorial rulers only to live their lives with a measure of peace and freedom. Pray for them today; their blood is running in the streets of Damascus.
Comments (2) »Wednesday, November 16th, 2011 at 3:50 PM | Stand for Israel
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