The Ras Burqa massacre was a mass shooting on 5 October 1985 on Israeli vacationers in Ras Burqa, a beach resort area in the Sinai peninsula, in which seven, including four children, were killed by Egyptian soldier Suleiman Khater. The attack On 5 October 1985, an Egyptian soldier, Suleiman Khater, machine-gunned a group of Israelis, killing three adults and four young children, on the dunes of Ras Burqa. The only survivor was 5-year old Tali Griffel, whose mother, Anita, shielded her with her body. According to eyewitnesses, the Egyptian Central Security Forces who were nearby refused to help the wounded; furthermore, they stopped an Israeli doctor and other tourists at gunpoint from administering any aid to the victims of the shooting, and the wounded Israelis were left to bleed to death. Egyptian authorities countered that the Israelis bled to death "because this crazy soldier refused to let anyone near the area that some of the victims lay". The gunman killed one of the Egyptian policeman who tried to arrest him. Israel protested the Egyptian refusal to allow the victims to be treated by Israeli doctors or transferred to hospitals in Israel. Khatir said the killings were not intentional. He said he could only see a group of people coming towards him in the dark (despite it having been light when he shot them), refusing his orders to stop. In an interview with Peace Now, Tali Griffel described her memories of the attack: "For many years, I didn't think about what happened. I just blocked out everything and then slowly, slowly I sort of regained feeling. I remember as the shooting started, my mother grabbed me and lay down, putting me under her. She whispered to me, keeping me calm. I can still recall the feeling of the jolt as she got shot. Yet, she continued to hold me and talk to me as she bled to death. When I crawled out, I sat there alone for a very long time. The Egyptian police came and took me away to a dark room where they interrogated me for hours." Fatalities Israeli civilian fatalities Seven people were killed in the attack: Aftermath Trial and conviction After the shootings, Egyptian authorities claimed that the perpetrator Khater was mentally ill. During the initial interrogations, Khatir claimed that he had been unaware of the identity or nationality of the people he had shot and that