The New York Times · New York, NY · 26 February 1997

CP-1997-035

Empire State Gunman’s Note: Kill ‘Zionists’

By MATTHEW PURDY

Scan 1138 × 988 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

The gunman who opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building on Sunday said in a letter found on his body that he planned his attack as revenge for the treatment of Palestinians by the United States, Israel and other countries.

“The Zionists are the paw that carried out their savage aggression,” wrote Ali Abu Kamal, the 69-year-old English teacher from Gaza who shot seven people before killing himself Sunday afternoon. “My restless aspiration is to murder as many of them as possible, and I have decided to strike at their own den in New York, and at the very Empire State Building in particular.”

Law enforcement officials said they have found no evidence to support the contention of Mr. Abu Kamal’s family that he was distressed at having been swindled out of hundreds or thousands of dollars of his life’s savings, and the officials said they doubted the money ever existed. They also said they had found no indication that Mr.

Abu Kamal acted in concert with a terrorist group or any accomplices. Instead, investigators are left to search for motivation in Mr. Abu Kamal’s two-page letter, titled “Charter of Honour,” which identifies four groups of “bitter enemies” who he said “must be annihilated & exterminated” for misdeeds both political and personal.

The “enemies” include a group of students who he said attacked him in 1993 because he “didn’t agree to their command asking me to help them cheat in the final examination,” students in the Ukraine who he said beat his son and stole $250 from him and an Egyptian police officer who he said beat him for “pass- … [NOT TRANSCRIBED IN FULL — SEE needs_rescan AND note.

Only what I can read with certainty is given below.] RAMPAGE AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING: Messages Behind the Violence OVERVIEW Gunman Wanted to Kill ‘Zionists,’ His Note Says Continued From Page A1 port formalities.” [The rest of the jump — three narrow columns down the right-hand edge of the page — is below the resolution this scan can carry and is NOT transcribed.

The other articles sharing the clipping, which are separate journalism and not part of CP-1997-035, are: “THE LETTER — ‘My Restless Aspiration Is to Murder’”, printing the text of the letter released by City Hall beside a photograph of the handwritten “Charter of Honour” and signed at its foot by a relative of Ali Abu Kamal; “THE WEAPON — Calls for Stricter Gun Control Laws Increase in Aftermath of Shooting”, By FRANK BRUNI; and “THE TOURISTS — Observation Deck Draws Thousands as It Reopens”, By BRUCE WEBER, with a photograph of visitors on the 86th-floor deck.]

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping. The other part of this article was added on 2 November 2026 from a second clipping (m009_1.png).

Context added by this archive

Clean clipping. The caption of the accompanying photograph (“A VICTIM IS REMEMBERED As the 86th-floor observation deck reopened yesterday at the Empire State Building, flowers and a card honored a slain musician.

Page B3.”, credit “Thomas Dallal for The New York Times”) belongs to this article but is a caption, not body text, so it is excluded from the excerpt and recorded here. Jump line reads “Continued on Page B3, Column 5”. No Israeli-Arab vocabulary.

Cite this clipping

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