A Palestinian driver rammed a bulldozer into a bus and police car in Yerushalayim today, lightly wounding two officers before he was shot dead – the latest in a string of attacks by Palestinian terrorists using heavy machinery against Israeli civilian targets. There was no immediate claim of responsibility or details of the man’s identity. One witness, a taxi driver identified as “Dor,” told Israel Radio that he chased the driver as he witnessed the attack. “I saw the police car fly into the air. He flipped it over twice, then continued dragging it toward a bus that was stuck in traffic,” he said. He told the station that he had fired four shots at the man, wounding him. “Then a policeman came with his M-16 and finally finished him off,” he added.
Police, MDA and ZAKA forces streamed to the scene minutes later, after police received emergency calls telling them that a bulldozer was trying to run over a police vehicle.
An initial police investigation indicated that the bulldozer driver reached the intersection near Teddy Stadium and managed to push a police vehicle for about 30 meters. After that, he tried to push the police vehicle into a bus, but was apparently blocked by an electrical post.
According to ZAKA, the bus was full of girls dressed in Purim costumes en route to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital to cheer up patients in advance of Purim.
A number of bystanders suffering from shock were treated on the scene by MDA teams.
ZAKA operation commander Chaim Weinrot said that “the girls were hysterical. They saw the enormous scoop heading toward them and saw death approaching, but they were saved at the last minute by the post. It is a Purim miracle.”
Within half an hour of the attack, Yerushalayim Mayor Nir Barakat was on the scene to personally inspect the situation.
“The attack targeted us for no reason other than the fact that we live in Yerushalayim. This was an attack carried out exclusively for the purpose of harming civilians,” he said.
Barkat also thanked police, security forces and civilians who stopped the attack, and vowed that “everyone involved in the attack” would be brought to justice.
The attack is the third of its kind in less than a year. At the beginning of last July, a bulldozer plowed into a number of vehicles on Rechov Yaffo, near the Machane Yehuda market in the capital. Four people were killed in that incident, including the terrorist.
Three weeks later, another bulldozer driver went on a rampage in Yerushalayim, aiming his vehicle at an Egged bus near the King David hotel. He wounded 15 people before being shot and killed.
{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel/AP/Jpost}
