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BYU Jerusalem Center, students safe after bombs are aimed at Jerusalem for first time in 40 years
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By Mandy Morgan
For the Deseret News
Published: Friday, Nov. 16 2012 1:25 p.m. MST
BYU Jerusalem Center
John Hart
Enlarge photo»
Students, faculty and staff in the BYU Jerusalem Center are safe, after one, possibly, two missiles were launched into the Holy Land, according to the Jerusalem Center website's security updates.
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Palestinian militants target Jerusalem with rocket attack in major escalation
“Jerusalem is likely to be among the safest areas in the Middle East if there are retaliatory actions against Israel, and the safest area is East Jerusalem where the Center is located.”
BYU update
Eric Moulton, Ellen Brotherson and 80 other students studying at BYU's Jerusalem Center hurried to bomb shelters Friday evening after Hamas fired a missile in the direction of Jerusalem for the first time.
Students at the Center spent 15 minutes in a shelter there, while those who were in West Jerusalem at the time had to go to shelters in the city. Other students in another part of the city went to the U.S. Consulate's shelter.
All students, faculty and staff at the Center are safe after the missile strike occurred at around 5 p.m. Jerusalem time, according to security updates on the Center's website.
"They are safe. They are all accounted for," said Carri Jenkins, BYU spokeswoman. "They are leaving for Galilee on Monday and are still on the same academic schedule as the students here in Provo."
The missiles didn't reach the city but landed in fields several miles south of Bethlehem.
Brotherson sent a note to her family soon after the students left the shelters, indicating she and the others were safe, said her father Sean Brotherson.
"The program takes the safety of the students, faculty and staff most seriously," said Sean Brotherson, who spent a semester at the BYU Jerusalem Center himself in 1990, "and they have extensive protocols in place both to protect those participating in the program, as well as to remove them from any dangerous circumstances that may emerge in the region.
"The program operates on a real-time basis ... so that if any particular security concerns emerge, they remain aware of those, they monitor those and they adjust their plans if needed, to err on the side of well-being and safety," he said. "As a parent that gives me great reassurance."
In a post on Facebook, one of the students studying at the Center, Moulton, gave this context to family and friends, lending to the safety of the Center's location: "The Jerusalem Center is located smack dab in the middle of an Arab neighborhood and less than a kilometer away from the Dome of the Rock — the second most holy site in Islam."
"Jerusalem is a holy city. It's an untouchable city in the sense that, in these types of conflicts, it's a site that is holy for Muslims as well as Jews and Chrisitians," Josh Gubler, an assistant professor of political science at BYU, said. "Having the Center there makes it a nice location in that regard."
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Top Comments
In linking of religion and war one must also remember another "religion" or religious belief that there is no God, Atheism. Hitler might have been born Catholic but was he a practicing Catholic after 1932? I don't think so. Stalin, Tojo, More..
- 12:11 a.m. Nov. 17, 2012
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Whew!! Because the BYU center was the first thing I was worried about on the brink of WWIII. Now I can sleep tonight.
- 4:27 p.m. Nov. 16, 2012
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No doubt as prophecy would seem to suggest -- this small corner of the world
seems destined for military conflict.
Prophecy also reminds us that
righteousness must also increase -- but that part is up to each of us
individually. I am glad
More..
- 6:37 p.m. Nov. 16, 2012
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