The Associated Press carried a report, attributed to sources close to
Israel¹s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, that Peres¹ granddaughter was at Los
Angeles International Airport on July 4 at the time an immigrant from Egypt
opened fire at the El Al ticket counter, killing two persons before he was
killed by the El Al security chief.
The granddaughter, Mika (Michal) Walden, and her fiance, Dror Almog, had
been dropped off at the airport a short time before by Dr. Yonatan Peres,
the son of the foreign minister and uncle of Walden.
Yonatan Peres, a veterinarian who has been fundraising in the United States
for the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind, related to Heritage that in
helping to check Walden in, he had exchanged greetings with El Al security
chief Haim Sapir only a short time before the shooting. In particular, he
said, he checked with Sapir about the procedures for shipping Mika¹s and
Dror¹s two cats, Lulu and Blue, back to Israel.
Sapir is a friend of Peres¹ girlfriend, Sigal Shalev. ³He¹s a kind man and
he helped us, and we got everything straightened out,² Peres related.
At about 11:25 a.m., Peres and an Australian friend, horsetrainer Carl
Braund, left the couple, who headed for the duty-free shop in another part
of the airport.  
After exiting the airport, Peres said, and ³just as I hit the Freeway 405,
my cell phone rings and this is Mika on the line, telling me OWell, first I
want to start by saying, Oeverything is okay, don¹t worry.¹  OWhat
happened?¹  She said, OI don¹t know exactly what happened, but there has
been some shooting at the airport, and we were in the duty-free and someone
came in shouting, ³everybody on the floor, everybody hit the floor,¹² and
then ... they had to be quiet and they were taken to another area.²
Peres said by his calculations, the shooting occurred ³maybe two or three
minutes after I left.²
He expressed relief that the shooter had been killed by Sapir before even
more people were killed.
When in Israel, Yonatan Peres writes occasional articles for Heritage.
Another family with San Diego connections < Jerusalem resident Lissa Magen
and her six children ranging in age from 3 to 14 < had arrived in Los
Angeles on an El Al flight before the shooting. After clearing U.S. Customs,
they reached the airport parking lot when they saw people pouring out of the
Tom Bradley International Terminal, which was evacuated in the wake of the
shooting.
Magen, daughter of Lucy Goldman, said the family listened to the news about
the shooting on the radio of the San Diego Sedan van that transported the
family to San Diego.