October 9, 1994
Hamas terrorists abduct Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman from the Bnai Atarot junction in central Israel by offering him a ride while wearing kippot, playing Hasidic music and carrying a prayer book.
A video recovered two days later shows Wachsman, who has U.S. citizenship, with his hands and feet bound in front of a keffiyeh-covered man showing Wachsman’s identity card. Wachsman says that if Israel does not release Sheik Ahmed Yassin and 200 other Palestinian prisoners by October 14, Hamas will kill him.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refuses to negotiate with terrorists, by U.S. President Bill Clinton sends diplomats to Gaza, where intelligence believes that Wachsman is being held, to try to win the soldier’s release.
Israel captures the driver of the car that picked up Wachsman, Jihad Yarmur, who reveals that the Israeli is being held in Bir Nabala, a village under Israeli control only 10 minutes from Wachsman’s home in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood. Rabin orders a military rescue attempt, but Wachsman and the commander of the rescue team, Capt. Nir Poraz, are killed.