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The death squad, consisting of 11 terrorists, two of them women, is believed to have been launched from a ship offshore, from which they put out in two Zodiak commando boats, loaded down with Kalashnikov rifles, RPG light montars and high explosives. In late afternoon they beached near a kibbutz called Ma'agan Mikha'el, then walked less than a mile up to the four-lane highway. After opening fire at passing traffic, they hijacked a white Mercedes taxi, killing its occupants. Setting off down the highway toward Tel Aviv, they met a bus on its way to Haifa. They fired at the bus, wounding its driver and some passengers and forcing it to a stop. One of the passengers on the bus was Avraham Shamir, 42, who was returning to his home in Haifa from a visit to the stalactite caves near Jerusalem. After first ordering everyone off the bus, said Shamir, the terrorists "ordered us all back on, turned the bus around by crossing the traffic island dividing the highway, and headed southward, yelling 'To Tel Aviv, to Tel Aviv!' "
The pattern of random terror continued for nearly 30 miles. Witnesses said the gunmen fired machine guns and threw grenades at passing cars from the hijacked bus. Some passengers inside the bus were fired on, and at least one body was dumped along the way. An American youth who was driving from Tel Aviv to Haifa with his family reported seeing "a car standing on the other side of the highway and a body lying near by. Moments later," he said, "I saw a bus zigzagging toward our side of the highway. When we came close it stopped. Somebody came down from the front door of the bus with a submachine gun and shot at us. All the windows were smashed and the glass fell on us. My father shouted, 'Look at my arm!' I pushed him aside and took the wheel. He had a huge hole in his chest. My brother, who had been sleeping in the back seat, was in terrible condition. When we reached the hospital, I asked the doctor if my father and brother had a chance. He said, 'Sorry, son. Both are dead.' "
Farther down the highway, the commandeered bus met another bus, also heading toward Haifa. The terrorists stopped this bus too, and forced its passengers to crowd onto the first one. The hostages now numbered 71, and the police were on the trail. The bus approached one hastily erected checkpoint and careened right through it. Then, just outside Tel Aviv, police set up a roadblock, seeded the highway with nails, and positioned themselves alongside. There the wild trail of terror finally came to an end. By that time, reported TIME Correspondent David Halevy, who was the only reporter on the scene, "the highway looked like a slaughterhouse. It was worse than anything I saw at the school shot up by terrorists in Ma'alot."
There had not been time to order in Israel's crack antiterrorist squads. So the task of stopping the terrorists fell to some 30 traffic cops, armed only with .38 revolvers and UZI submachine guns. When the bus finally skidded into a ditch with all its tires flat, the police rushed it. Said Arza Tazor, 24, a passenger: "I remember police breaking the windows of the bus and telling us to jump. I jumped."