Moti Ashkenazi was known to the police in the 90s as an old Tel Aviv drug addict and beach thief. To pay for another dose of drugs, he stole wallets from the bags of swimmers on the beaches. Some of the unsuspecting vacationers even asked him, while they were splashing in the sea, to guard their belongings, so that later they would return and see that both their wallets and the “watchman” himself had disappeared.
On June 20, 1997, thousands of schoolchildren flocked to the Tel Aviv city beaches to celebrate the end of the school year. Jerusalem Beach was especially crowded…
On that day, drug-hungry Moti Aashkenazi violated a court order on his house arrest and went on a “hunt”. The beach was strewn with bags. The choice was huge. Moti looked around, saw that there were no municipal inspectors nearby and began to choose his “game”. One of the bags caught his attention and he decided to “attack”.
A drug addict, a thief and a violator of a court order, he could not even imagine that on this day, at this hour, he would go down in the history of Israel as the saviour of dozens of innocent young lives. As an angel of selflessness and courage in spite of everything, even your own freedom.
He was threatened with jail for violating house arrest, and he knew it. Moti Ashkenazi understood all this, but he made a choice. The only possible choice in the situation that collapsed on his unfortunate head. The choice of the Israeli and the Jew. Even for a downtrodden man like him, there was only one choice.
Here is how he himself talks about that terrible day for him and at the same time happy for dozens of teenagers:
“On this day, I was supposed to remain under house arrest for the offenses I had committed earlier, but I decided to violate the court order and leave the house. I planned to go “hunting on Gordon Beach”, but the municipal inspectors who were there and recognized me demanded that I leave the beach and not look for problems.
This afternoon the beach was packed with high school graduates. There were thousands of them. There was nowhere for the needle to fall. It was impossible to walk along the beach without running into 4-5 teenagers. The inspectors who always chased me were not around and this gave me the confidence to go to the end.
There were endless bags on the beach. I only had to choose. Some of the bags were stacked in heaps. I remember bags that looked very expensive and prestigious. I thought they were backpack bags. But for some reason, I didn’t stay close to them. I can’t explain why.
I finally stopped at a pile of bags that I was later told belonged to Ramat Gan High School students. A black bag lay on a towel next to the pile. Next to her, on the same towel, were sunglasses and keys. Exactly as if someone came to rest and climbed into the water.
A group of teenagers stood next to a pile of bags and I tried to see if my goal belonged to any of them. I couldn’t find the owner. Usually I figured out the owners, watched them for a long time and waited until they went for a swim. This time, I had no idea who the black bag belonged to.
I can’t explain why, but I decided that I would rob this particular bag. The method was simple: go to the bag, open it, stick your hand in there, pull out the wallet and run. I’ve never stolen entire bags.
On that day, at the moment when my hand slipped inside the bag, I immediately realized that there was no question of an ordinary bag. The first thing I felt was that the bag was full of nails. I remember the thought that flashed through my head: “Why would a child carry nails to the beach?”
I opened the bag wider. Inside, I saw a strange box to which a hose was attached to the end of which a clockwork was attached. Like this. In the middle of a crowded beach.
At that moment, a very strange feeling came over me. It was like two people grabbed my arms from both sides, lifted me to my feet and I heard my inner voice that told me: “Quickly take this bag and get out of here.”
I am a believer. He always was. And I always prayed to the Creator that He would help me. And so, in an instant on the beach, I felt him lift me up and put this bag on my back.
I, who never took a whole bag and always left the beach at a headlong run, am now walking with a black bag on my back, full of confidence and not a single inspector, none of those on the beach, including those hidden, pretending to be ordinary vacationers, does not stop me.
None of them. And they all know me.
Crossing the road, I stopped and opened my bag again. Inside, I saw the whole picture, two buttons – green and red, and immediately realized that there was a “ticking bomb” in the bag. I realized that I have a responsibility. I am not an irresponsible person.
I took my bag and ran to an abandoned building on Geula Street, carried it inside and ran to the nearby Savoy Hotel to call the police. The first thing the policeman asked me was: “Mochi, what are you doing outside the house? You should be under house arrest!”
I explain to him that I have a bag inside which is a bomb, but he did not believe me.
I went back to Geula street and started dragging garbage containers onto the roadway to stop the traffic. There was noise and commotion. When the police arrived, they started yelling at me for blocking the traffic. But that didn’t interest me. I only asked them to go into the abandoned house and look into the bag for themselves.
The police went inside. In a matter of seconds, they ran like a bullet from an abandoned house. Just like in the movies. They blocked the traffic and called the sapper team.
Later I was told that it was a bomb with five kilograms of explosives and nails. A bomb that, if it exploded, would turn the beach into a bloody mess, tear dozens to shreds, injure and maim hundreds, turning the area into a continuous picture of horror that would accompany us to the end of our days.
Later, I was told that the terrorist had positioned himself in the Miami Hotel opposite, with a video camera at the ready to film the moment of the explosion and the entire subsequent nightmare. He had a completely European look and therefore no one paid attention to him.
I also later learned that he was a member of a terrorist ring infiltrated from Egypt that was responsible for the bombing of the Tel Aviv cafe Apropo three months ago that killed three women.
The link of killers was captured in full force.
When my memory brings me back to the moments I experienced, time after time, I know that what happened was nothing more than personal divine providence. The Creator was with me all the time – from beginning to end. The bag could explode on me at any second. Worse, I could blow up with her in an abandoned house and they might think that I was collaborating with terrorists. Maybe… for the money. And my family would have to live with it until they die.
The Lord kept me and the People of Israel. How else can you explain the fact that I chose this particular bag on the beach? It’s like taking out of a bag of rice that has spilled out that one, the only true grain.
What are the chances of that?“
After this incident, the police removed all charges and restrictions from Moti Ashkenazi, closed his cases, he was completely acquitted and sent to free rehabilitation, where he completely got rid of drug addiction.
Moti Ashkenazi, a former drug addict who is now 50 years old, the father of five children, one of whom is an IDF infantryman serving in Hebron, now lives and is well with his family in Tel Aviv. Just as the hundreds of former teenagers he saved live and live, some from imminent death, some from wounds and severe injuries, on June 20, 1997, and God grant them all long life up to 120 years.
What an amazing story about Moti on Gordon Beach, a place we are very familiar with. Brought tears to my eyes.