14 DAY TRIAL // Choosing the wrong travel bag knowing you'll be boarding in an Israeli airport may not be such a good idea if you’re planning to stuff it with valuable items, like your laptop, for example. Chances are it’s going to be blown up by the authorities. It’s the story of blogger Lily Sussman who saw her unibody MacBook shot not once, but three times, because the bag it was in looked suspicious. She was still (miraculously) able to salvage all her data.
“I was sitting on the deck overlooking the Red Sea. Israeli security officers (most who looked around 18 years old) had completed around two hours of questioning and searching me,” lilysussman blogs. “They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions [...] I went inside to check on my bag. I had left it unattended, where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside,” she writes.
“Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, ‘I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop,’” lilysussman reveals. “What….all my client case notes and testimony, writing, pictures, music and applications. Years of work. NO!!!! What?? Are you insane?? What were you thinking? THAT’S ALL MY WORK!?,” her intriguing post reads.
“After much yelling, crying and frantic phone dialing [...] he took me outside to see the wreckage,” lilysussman continues. “It turned out it hadn’t been quite blown up, but rather shot through with three bullets. We were able to extract the hard drive, seemingly unscaved. Thank goodness…”
According to lilysussman, the Israeli authorities are also going to replace the laptop for her, although this is little compensation for what she had to go through. Surprisingly, this is not the first time the Israeli police blows up a person’s belongings. What are your thoughts on this?
Update: as one of our readers points out (screen name - "careless") the opening part of this story was a bit misleading (therefore corrected). Lily Sussman hadn't, in fact, left her bags unattended. The bag carrying her MacBook Pro was undergoing routine checks, along with the rest of her luggage, at which point, the Israeli police decided they needed to shoot one of them. It's still not clear why exactly the bag looked suspicious in any way.
