Two dead in bulldozer attack on Jerusalem bus

Mark Tran
London Guardian
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Aftermath of the bus attack

A man seized control of a bulldozer and overturned a bus on a main road in Jerusalem today, killing at least three people before he was shot dead, Israeli police said.

Officials identified the man as a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who had an Israeli identification card and a criminal record.

He was shot by an off-duty soldier and then by an anti-terrorism officer, Eli Mizrahi. "I ran up the stairs [of the vehicle] and, when he was still driving like crazy and trying to harm civilians, I fired at him twice more and, that's it, he was liquidated," Mizrahi said.

A TV camera captured footage of the caterpillar bulldozer crushing a vehicle and an off-duty soldier shooting the driver in the head several times at point-blank range.

Local television reported that four people had died in the rampage, although rescue services put the number at three. Israel Radio said one of the victims was a woman who had been driving a Toyota. Israel's national rescue service said at least 45 people were wounded.

TV pictures showed a single-decker bus lying on its side on the busy Jaffa Road, near the city's old central bus station and the headquarters of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Another bus was heavily damaged, half a dozen cars were flattened and the entire front section of a van was crushed.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said: "A suspect driving a tractor ran over a number of vehicles and Israelis in the street, on Jaffa Road. Israeli police arrived at the scene. Many people were injured." He described the attack as a terrorist incident.

The driver of the overturned bus, Assaf Nadav, said: "I saw a bulldozer coming towards me and initially there was a small bang on the left side. I opened the window to tell him to watch his driving. He looked me in the eye and drove towards the bus and then lifted it and turned it on its side."

He said his number 13 bus was full and some of the passengers were standing. After it was flipped over, a policewoman broke the back window and people streamed out.

Asked to describe what it had been like inside the bus, Assaf replied: "Screaming would be too mild a word."

Rory McCarthy reports from the scene

Three organisations claimed responsibility for the attack: the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, which is affiliated with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas; the Galilee Freedom Battalion, which is suspected of being affiliated with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas; and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a fringe left-wing militant group.

However, the Israeli police chief, Dudi Cohen, said the attacker appeared to have been acting alone. "It looks as if it was a spontaneous act," he said.

Cohen said the attacker was a father of two. Local TV, citing police, reported that he was in his 30s and had worked for a construction contractor as a bulldozer driver.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is maintaining a fragile ceasefire with Israel, said it did not carry out the attack but praised it nevertheless.

"We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank and all over the occupied lands," said a spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri.

An aide to Abbas, Saeb Erekat, condemned the violence. "We condemn any attacks that target civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinians, and President Abbas has been consistent in his position to condemn any attacks, including the one in west Jerusalem, that targeted civilians," he said.

Hundreds of people fled through the streets in panic as medics treated the wounded. Hen Shimon, a 19-year-old soldier, said the whole scene was a "nightmare."

"I just got off the bus and I saw the tractor driving and knocking everything down in his path," she said. "Everything he saw he rammed. He had a gun and started shooting at a police officer."

"I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver's seat," Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student, told the Associated Press.

Another witness, Yosef Spielman, said the bulldozer picked up a car "like a toy". "I was shocked. I saw a guy going crazy," he said. "All the people were running. They had no chance."

Sixteen-year-old Eyal Lang Ben-Hur said he was in the second damaged bus. The driver yelled out "Get out of the vehicle! Everyone out!" and people fled in a panic before the bus was hit, he said.

The mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, said his daughter was on one of the buses rammed by the attacker, but was not injured. "To our regret, the attackers do not cease coming up with new ways to strike at the heart of the Jewish people here in Jerusalem," he said.

The last attack by an Arab in west Jerusalem was in March, when a gunman killed eight students at a religious school before he was shot dead.

Today's rampage occurred in an area of Jerusalem where a new train system is being built. The project has turned many parts of the city into a construction zone.
SOURCE: London Guardian