The Shaar HaNegev school bus attack was a missile attack on 7 April 2011, in which Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired a Kornet laser-guided anti-tank missile over the border at an Israeli school bus, killing a schoolboy.
Hamas claimed the bus was traveling on a road used by Israeli military vehicles and it did not know that schoolchildren were on board. Israel said the yellow color of the bus made it easily identifiable and accused Hamas of "crossing a line."
The missile hit the bus after all but one of the children had been dropped off. The only remaining passenger, a 16-year-old boy, Daniel Viflic, was critically injured with shrapnel wounds to the head and died from his injuries on 17 April. The driver was lightly injured. Another mortar barrage was timed to coincide with the arrival of the paramedics, which delayed the evacuation.
The attack was condemned by the international community.
Background
Hamas claimed that the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of three of its leaders on 2–3 April In the 48 hours prior to the attack, Palestinians had also fired a separate anti-tank missile at an Israeli target. Anti-tank missiles, unlike rockets and mortars, are extremely accurate, and their use requires more skill.
The attack
On 7 April 2011, a bright yellow school bus belonging to the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council was dropping off students near their homes when a Hamas missile hit the rear of the bus. The bus was 50 metres past its stop at Kibbutz Sa'ad. All the children had been dropped off apart from Daniel Viflic, a 16-year-old yeshiva student from Beit Shemesh. He was critically injured by shrapnel which penetrated his brain. Viflic also suffered shrapnel wounds to head, neck and body, and massive blood loss. He temporarily stopped breathing, which prevented oxygen from reaching his brain. Viflic had been on the bus with driver Zion Yemini, a family friend. He had hitched a ride to visit his grandmother who lived in the western Negev. The driver was lightly injured in the leg, and was able to pull the bus over to the side of the road, where he carried Viflic out of the vehicle.
Paramedics arrived quickly and began resuscitating Viflic. Hamas militants launched a mortar barrage timed to coincide with the arrival of paramedics, and medics attending to Viflic had to work under heavy mortar fire. Mortar fire delayed Viflic's evacuation. He was airlifted in critical condition to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where he was placed in the pediatric intensive care unit. Shortly afterward, his brain stopped functioning. Following an initial brain scan, doctors concluded that he had sustained a permanent brain injury. Doctors tried every treatment for cases of severe head trauma such as medication, special respiratory therapy, and attempts to lower his body temperature. Viflic remained in a coma on life support, showing no evidence of any brain activity. His condition was upgraded to extremely critical on 12 April. Viflic died on 17 April, ten days after the attack, as a result of a severe brain injury.
Because the Russian-made Kornet is an accurate, laser-guided weapon, it appeared that the bus was intentionally targeted. The attackers were never apprehended.
Aftermath
Fears that the attack would lead to a second Gaza War did not materialize, but the incident was followed by a several-day stretch of violence in which Palestinians launched over 100 projectiles at Israel in which no Israelis were killed, and at least 20 Israeli strikes from its army, navy, and air force that left 19 dead and at least 45 wounded in Gaza by the time hostilities had ceased. Reports varied widely as to how many of the people killed were civilians versus militants: Haaretz said just two were civilians, AFP reported while the violence was still ongoing that seven civilians were killed, and the BBC just said that "many" were. The dead in Gaza included a mother and her 21-year-old daughter, a policeman, and a 10-year-old boy. Agence France-Presse reported that the interval following the bus attack included "the deadliest 24 hours of violence in the Strip since the end of the Gaza war" two years previously.