Palestinian Plows Into Traffic With Earthmover

Jul 22nd, 2008
International Herald Tribune
By: Isabel Kershner & Graham Bowley

Jerusalem - JERUSALEM: For the second time in a month, a Palestinian driving a large construction vehicle plowed into traffic on a busy Jerusalem street Tuesday, hitting a bus and mangling cars before being shot to death.

The driver wounded about 16 people before being shot by a passerby and a border police officer, officials said. On July 2, another Palestinian drove a construction vehicle on a rampage in central Jerusalem before an off-duty soldier and a police officer clambered up to the cabin and shot him to death. At least three people were killed and more than 40 wounded in the earlier attack, Israeli officials said.

There were no fatalities Tuesday besides the driver of the construction vehicle, the authorities said, although at least one person was badly wounded. Yonatan Yagadovsky, director of the international department of the rescue organization Magen David Adom, said that person had lost a leg.

The police identified the driver as Ghassan Abu Tir, 22, of Umm Tuba, an Arab village in the southeast of the city with a strong Hamas presence. Relatives and neighbors said he was not affiliated with any militant group.

He was stopped when the off-duty soldier shot into the vehicle. A border police officer who arrived soon afterward also shot him, the police said, 'to confirm his death.'

Minutes after Tuesday's attack, many of those wounded were still being led away from the scene by the emergency services and the area was closed off.

The attack took place in Jerusalem's upscale hotel district, where the local media reported that Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president, planned to stay overnight while on a weeklong overseas tour.

'Today's bulldozer attack is a reminder of what Israelis have courageously lived with on a daily basis for far too long,' Obama said at a news conference in Amman. 'I strongly condemn this attack and will always support Israel in confronting terrorism and pursuing lasting peace and security.'

After the attack, witnesses said the construction vehicle, which they described as a large digger, had been riddled with bullets.

Witnesses said the vehicle was driven from a construction site behind the YMCA building opposite the King David Hotel.

When the vehicle emerged onto King David Street, it first hit a bus, whose driver reacted quickly and drove off the road, according to Bentzi Gottesman, 24, who was working in a nearby gallery. The construction vehicle then proceeded slowly along the main street, deliberately hitting cars along the way, Gottesman said.

Another witness, Moshe Feiglin, said: 'The first thing he tried was to lower the shovel on a female pedestrian right near me. I jumped when there was a boom as the shovel hit the street. He missed by centimeters, thank God.

'In the first second I thought it was some kind of accident, confusion, but then he continued in a zigzag on King David Street, hitting cars, turning over cars.'