32 Years Since the Attack on Bus 405: The Driver Recalls the Tragic Event

The face of Abed al-Aadi Anaemi will never be erased from the memory of Moshe Elul. "I suspected him from the first moment he boarded the bus, but I had to focus on the road and couldn't give him the full attention. It soon became clear to me how accurate my suspicions were," says Moshe Elul, a former bus driver and now a yeshiva student.

"At that time, I was completely secular," he notes, "but even as a secular person, I couldn't ignore the signs from heaven throughout the terrible disaster, and even those that occurred before it," he surprisingly shares.

Elul, 63, grew up in a traditional family. He studied at a religious school near his parents' house in Tel Aviv. "Religion was present at home, but we were far from observing mitzvot," he says. During his military service, even the remnants of Judaism he absorbed at home disappeared. He joined Egged following his father's pressure. "Working at the company was the dream of many, due to the good terms it offered," he recalls. "My father wanted to give me a good future and pushed me to take the step."

Initially, after getting married, Elul lived with his wife in the city of Arad. During this period, a friend from the army convinced him to join an event hosted by the 'Arachim' organization in the city. "At first, I tried to politely decline, saying these lectures were for people who grew up in secular homes searching for spirituality, but I already knew Judaism. However, the friend didn't give up. Finally, I was convinced and attended the event, during which I realized that Judaism is the truth and decided to draw closer to the faith."

How did your surroundings react to your return to faith?

"My family understood it. My first challenge as a religious person was with the small station managers in Arad. I approached them and informed them of my decision not to work on Shabbat. They were angry, but after realizing I had indeed chosen the path of Torah observance, they eventually allowed me not to work on Shabbat."

Next, Elul's career took a turn. "One day, I was offered to move to distant Tel Aviv, to work on the busy route 405. Tel Aviv had always appealed to me, and I decided to take the offer."

A Sign from Heaven

Every morning, Elul would leave his home in the first Hebrew city for the synagogue at Tel Aviv's old central station. "I would pray with devotion, then remove my kippah and continue my routine. I hid the change I was going through, with none of my colleagues knowing that behind the secular-looking driver was a Torah-observant man."

At the same time as his work on route 405, the second intifada broke out. Waves of terror gripped Israel, and Elul became particularly alert. "I feared that a terrorist would board my bus. Although I prayed daily and tried to observe the mitzvot to the best of my ability, I believed it was up to me to be responsible for my fate. I didn't understand that only Hashem determines what will happen," he says.

A while later, as Elul drove behind a truck carrying tires, he suddenly saw one of the tires fall off the truck and fly toward the bus window at high speed. "I ducked onto the steering wheel, knowing such an event could end in a disaster." A great fortune had the tire suddenly gain momentum and fly over the bus. "It was a hint from heaven—one of several—that hinted at the impending disaster," he says.

On the 3rd of Tammuz, 5749, 32 years ago, Elul began another drive like many others. "I arrived as usual to pray at the synagogue in Tel Aviv, and left around six in the morning towards Jerusalem," he recounts. "When I arrived in Jerusalem, I was supposed to rest a bit and only then continue working, but an Egged controller standing at the station approached me and asked me to return with the route." At that time, there were no buses according to precise schedules, and passengers would arrive and wait until there were enough for the bus to depart. When Elul arrived at the station that day, dozens of passengers were waiting to head to Tel Aviv, prompting the need to urgently dispatch a new bus. Thus, Elul found himself making the return journey to Tel Aviv, which he had just left not long before.

When Elul reached Tel Aviv again, he was asked to continue the journey. "A controller at the place asked me to take the passengers waiting at the station back to Jerusalem, explaining his insistence on the grounds that the passengers were waiting a long time for the bus. Elul declined the request, saying he had been working since the morning." In response, the controller made an offer hard to refuse: "Go to Jerusalem," he said, "and you can finish the route at 12:30 and head home." Elul accepted. As a bonus, he received a brand new bus that had just arrived from Germany, used only by the company's veteran drivers.

One-Way Journey

3rd of Tammuz, 5749. A group of passengers waited at the old central station in Tel Aviv for about half an hour. The place wasn't shaded, and the heat was heavy. Upon the arrival of the bus, the passengers hurried to board it to cool down with the air conditioning. One of the passengers was a young Arab man. "He immediately caught my attention, but not for long. The fact he went to sit at the back seat reassured me slightly."

Were there other people who caught your attention when they boarded that fateful trip?

"Indeed, some people are remembered quite tragically. Two of them were a couple who deliberated for a long time about whether to join the trip and decided to consult with me on the matter. They wondered before me what was better for them, whether to travel with me, which would require them to wait an hour in Jerusalem for the bus to Ein Gedi, or wait for the next bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would spare them waiting at the Jerusalem central station. I advised them not to wait. I explained that in Jerusalem, where the central station as it exists today had already been built, they could wait in an air-conditioned and comfortable spot instead of waiting under the beating sun at the Tel Aviv station. Yet they hesitated greatly. They boarded the bus and then decided to disembark. Then I saw them board again, and afterwards disembark back. Finally, after boarding and disembarking three times, they decided to stay on the bus. As we know, a person feels their fate in their heart, and they apparently felt something bad awaited them. They, alongside 14 other passengers, perished in the terrible disaster that occurred later," Elul says, his voice catching a bit.

Elul remembers the couple distinctly as Esther and Yitzhak Naim, may their memory be a blessing. "The two lived in Bat Yam, from where there was a bus to Ein Gedi, but for some reason, they chose to take a whole detour and reach Ein Gedi precisely through Tel Aviv. No one, even among their relatives, knows how to explain why they made this seemingly purposeless detour," says Elul. "Years after the disaster, I met with their family members, the couple's children, and began keeping in touch with them. During my meeting with them, I told them the story about their parents' hesitation before boarding the bus, and in response, their daughter, who was around ten years old at the time of the disaster, told me what happened the night before the trip." It turned out that the daughter had asked her parents to take her with them to Ein Gedi, but they refused. "As a little girl, I refused to accept this rejection, and I cried a lot to persuade them to take me," the girl recalled the night before the disaster. According to her testimony, she cried almost the entire night, but uncharacteristically, the parents stuck to their refusal. After a night of crying, the girl fell asleep, and the parents used the opportunity to leave the house, leaving the older brother to watch over her."

Did faith help you cope with the thoughts that probably followed?

"Definitely. The image of the couple boarding and disembarking the bus several times hasn't left me to this day. Every year, on the day of the attack, I visit their grave and recite chapters of Psalms for the couple whom divine providence decreed would perish in the terrible disaster."

Dangerous Curve

The deadly attack happened when the bus reached near Telz Stone. Near one of the curves, the terrorist, Abed al-Aadi Anaemi, rose from his seat. "I tried to make an effort to see who it was, but couldn't due to the sun that faced me, highlighting the relative darkness inside the bus," Elul recalls. The man approached Elul, and when he came near, he grabbed the steering wheel tightly and, without saying a word, turned it suddenly to the right.

Elul understood the predicament and began to struggle with the terrorist with all his might. "I pulled the steering wheel forcefully to the left while he in turn pulled it to the right." Tragically, most passengers were then asleep and unaware of the life-and-death struggle occurring. Others noticed the struggle and began to scream in horror.

Meanwhile, Elul and the terrorist continued to struggle. Elul managed to straighten the steering wheel after the terrorist's initial pull, but by then the bus had already veered slightly to the right. Elul saw the safety rail surrounding the road not far from the bus, which somewhat reassured him.

What were you thinking in those moments?

"I did begin to think about the worst-case scenario, but I believed the safety fence would keep the bus from falling into the abyss. While they were struggling, the bus was speeding toward the safety rail and climbed it, which got crushed in seconds under the bus wheels. At that time, the right wheels of the bus were already above the abyss, with the smell of death beginning to permeate the air.

"Luckily," says Elul, "I didn't press the brake to try to stop the bus, because according to experts who reconstructed the attack—a brake press would have resulted in a far greater disaster."

In those moments, with one side of the bus already over the precipice, Elul still hoped he could prevent the fall: "My life flashed before my eyes as I understood I might leave this world in a short while, but I definitely believed there was a chance I could prevent the fall." But then the terrorist lifted his legs onto the bus front plastic panel and pulled the wheel with all his might to the right. That was when the bus detached from the road and began descending. "I felt as if I was on a roller coaster, the slope below came into view, and I still believed I could stop the bus on one of the top terraces. However, Hashem willed otherwise and the bus rolled down to the bottom, to the valley floor."

Without any natural explanation, Elul was thrown out of the bus at one of the top terraces of the hill, thereby saving his life. "It was as though an invisible hand grabbed me and simply took me out of the horror," he says. "So, within seconds, I found myself standing on the hill, very close to the road from where I fell just seconds before." Aside from Elul, a few passengers were ejected through the windows, and they were the ones who survived the deadly plunge. The remaining passengers stayed locked in the bus descending into the abyss, straight to their deaths. When thrown, Elul took a severe blow and was knocked unconscious for a few seconds. "After waking up from my faint, I didn't initially understand my situation. Suddenly I saw the bus down in the valley, overturned, starting to burn. All that happened earlier came rushing back at once," he recounts.

"At that stage, I began to climb the small part of the hill left between me and the road, managing to reach the place where the bus stood moments before, looking down and pinching myself to check if I was still alive." Around him, the first citizens began to gather at the scene wanting to help. "I immediately informed them it wasn't an accident but a terrorist incident, and consequently, the military took over the disaster scene. Large forces streamed to the place, alongside students from a nearby yeshiva who rushed to help. Egged officials also arrived on the scene to collect the packages that fell from the burning bus. In one package, they found a tallit and tefillin alongside an Egged driver's microphone," he says.

"The Tefillin Remained Intact"

The bus burned like a torch due to the engine's crash in the valley. Sixteen passengers perished in the attack, and 25, including the driver, were injured. Elul points out that a great miracle was that the flames that broke out in the bus didn't spread to the surrounding field of thorns, preventing a heavy disaster and saving the lives of 25 additional passengers.

Elul's tefillin also remained unscathed: "Shortly after the event ended, I received my tefillin bag, which was left on the bus, completely scorched. I hesitated to open the capsules," he admits, but still took them for inspection." When the capsules were opened at the Tefillin Institute in Bnei Brak, the witnesses observed an amazing sight: the scrolls were entirely kosher, without any flaw, contrary to any natural explanation.

Today, the former bus driver is a yeshiva student who toils in Torah and dons every day the tefillin that remained intact after the hard event, reminding him where he came from and for what he came into the world.