ACRE, Israel — It’s been a week since tragedy struck on Feb. 17, and Acre residents are struggling to get their lives back on track. The explosion that rocked the city, killing five people, was apparently an act of sabotage and not an accident. In the first few days after the incident, everyone still believed that the building in the Old City collapsed when some gas canisters inside exploded.
On Feb. 18, it was determined that the explosion was caused by people who came in the middle of the night to attack the cell phone tower set up in the building. Investigators concluded that three local young people had climbed to the top of the building and placed an explosive charge next to the tower, hoping to destroy it. The charge went off prematurely and caused the entire building to collapse, burying its residents. It took hours for rescue teams to extricate four bodies. The body of a 5-year-old boy was found later on in the ruins.
On Feb. 21, I went to see the scene of the incident with my own eyes. The three-story building had disappeared as if the ground had swallowed it up. The floors had collapsed on top of each other, creating a huge hole in the ground. Police closed off the area and prevented both local residents and any curious onlookers from approaching the scene out of concern that whatever was left of the building might collapse further. Part of the third floor — the remains of a kitchen in one of the apartments — was still hanging precariously in the air. The tall cell tower still jutted out of the ruins, undestroyed but quite likely no longer operational.
The story apparently dates back to when one of the top-floor unit owners agreed to put the tower on the roof of the building for a monthly payment from a cellular company. Rumors started spreading throughout the Old City that anyone who approached the tower would get seriously ill. Local businessman Husam Ajuj told me that he knew the residents of the building well, and that they were all convinced that they would come down with cancer from the radiation emitted by the tower.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
