This is not a reprint of last week’s post on the attack that killed 3 people and injured a dozen more, including an infant whose mother pushed the child out of the car before she was crushed to death.
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian man rammed a construction vehicle into three cars and a city bus in downtown Jerusalem, near the luxury hotel where U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is to stay Tuesday night as he kicks off a visit to Israel. The attacker injured five people before an Israeli civilian shot and killed him, police and witnesses said.
The attack was similar to another rampage earlier this month, when another Palestinian plowed his front-end loader into a string of vehicles and pedestrians on a bustling Jerusalem street 3 miles away, killing three people and wounding dozens before the driver was shot and killed.
Police identified the perpetrator of Tuesday’s attack as 22-year-old Ghassan Abu Teir, an east Jerusalem resident related to a militantly anti-Israel politician from the Islamic Hamas party, Mohammed Abu Teir.
The assault turned the busy area into a scene of panic and chaos.
The driver of the bus said the assailant chased him with the shovel of his front-end loader.
“I was driving on the main road when the (construction vehicle) hit me in the rear, on the right hand side,” driver Avi Levi said.
“After I passed him he turned round, made a U-turn and rammed the windows twice with the shovel. The third time he aimed for my head, he came up to my window and I swerved to the right, otherwise I would have gone to meet my maker,” Levi said.
Witness Moshe Shimshi said the driver of the construction vehicle, who was wearing a large, white skullcap commonly worn by religious Muslims, slammed into the side of the bus, then sped away and went for a car.
He didn’t yell anything, he just kept ramming into cars,” Shimshi said.
The driver then headed for cars waiting at a red light “and rammed into them with all his might,” he added.
Shimshi said he stopped his motorcycle and ran toward the construction vehicle when he saw another man running at it from another direction.
The man, a civilian, began firing a pistol “two or three meters from the bulldozer, which was moving back and forth ramming into the cars the whole time,” Shimshi added. “After a few shots, I saw the driver shake and fall, and then he didn’t move any more.”
Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said a border police officer then arrived and shot at the driver “to make sure he was killed.” In the attack earlier this month, the assailant was shot and presumed dead — only to revive and carry on with his attack before being shot dead.
Related posts:
- Raw Video: Palestinian kills 3 in Jerusalem bulldozer attack
- Another Palestinian goes on road rampage, running down 17 in Jerusalem
- Another Bulldozer terror attack in Jerusalem; Muslim Terrorist killed by armed civilian
- Abbas won’t negotiate: wants Jerusalem to be Palestinian capital
- Terror attacks in Baghdad leave 95 dead, over 500 injured
- Palestinian woman attacks Israeli soldiers
- Video: “Jerusalem belongs to the Jews…Period!”
- Fatah activist planned Jerusalem massacre; Salary paid for by US Government
- IDF kills engineer of Jerusalem seminary attack *update* IDF denies his involvement
- UN General Ban Ki-Moon: “Jerusalem must be the Capital of Palestine”
