Jerusalem Terror Attack
A few hours ago, a palestinian from East Jerusalem – with an Israeli ID card - deliberately plowed a bulldozer he was driving into a passenger bus on Jaffa Street, Jerusalem, killing at least four people and wounding dozens more.
I know many of you come here for my liveblogging and I will try to update you during the day on further developments, but since I am paid to work and not to blog, I can’t promise much until later.
Updates (Israel time)
2:33PM: The current tally is 4 dead, 44 wounded.
Meanwhile, it seems as though the man who killed the terrorist is related to another terrorist killer.
A soldier on leave took the gun from an elite policeman at the scene and shot the terrorist dead. The soldier, Moshe Klessner, 18, is the brother-in-law of IDF officer David Shapira, who killed the terrorist in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack, Channel 2 reported.
2:45PM: A close call for the daughter of Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, who was in the next bus.
3:00PM: The palestinian Ramattan News Agency makes the attack sound like an accident with the following headline:
Three Israelis killed, 30 injured in Jerusalem Bulldozers crash
They also report that the Ahrar Al-Jalil Brigades has claimed responsibility for the attack. Yeah, that Ahrar Al-Jalil Brigades. Hence I wouldn’t take their word for it.
By the way, this group also claimed responsibility for the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva attack earlier this year.
3:40PM: Jaffa Street is one of the main streets in downtown Jerusalem. If you have visited Israel, you have almost definitely spent time there. The attack took place near the old Central Bus Station, so many of you would be familiar with this area.
4:45PM: While Ha’aretz is still reporting at least 4 dead, both the JPost and Ynet are reporting 3 dead.
4:46PM: Killing is great for business: 3 palestinian groups have now claimed responsibility for the attack, but security officials are saying the terrorist was acting alone.
4:54PM: Believe it or not, here is recorded footage of the terrorist being stopped.
And if you really want to be aggravated, go visit the Live Leak page of this video and see some of the comments.
(Video seen over at Israel Matzav, where Carl is also live blogging)
6:00PM: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered ministers to examine the possibility of razing the terrorist’s home in East Jerusalem, as well as revoking National Insurance Institute stipends from the terrorist’s family.
6:36PM: More from Moshe Plesser, the off-duty soldier who shot and killed the scum who drove the bulldozer:
As he began running towards the bulldozer, Plesser said that he shouted out to onlookers for a gun. Together with another civilian, Plesser climbed aboard the bulldozer and began wrestling with the driver.
“At one point he [the driver] yelled out “Allah Akhbar” [God is great] and stepped on the gas pedal,” Plesser recalled. “I drew the weapon of the civilian who was with me and shot the driver three times in the head. I think I did what is expected from every soldier and citizen.”
Seconds later, a police officer, Eli Mizrahi, climbed aboard the bulldozer and shot the terrorist again, killing him.
Plesser said that his brother-in-law David’s heroic conduct in March served as a role model. Shapira, who lives across the street from Mercaz Harav, heard the late-night shooting, ran into the building where two police officers were standing, took one of their caps and ran inside and shot the terrorist.
“I thank God who gave me and my brother-in-law the strength to do what we did,” he said, adding that his education in national-religious institutions and training in the elite Egoz unit served as the basis for his courageous conduct.
Incidentally, these national-religious institutions are much vilified, both by the world at large and some secular elements within Israel. But mark my words – the guys who go there are the best of the best, both in terms of their principles, as well as their heroism.
6:40PM: Knesset Member Esterina Tattman:
“If the terrorist who carried out the attack in Jerusalem really is a resident of east Jerusalem, who enjoyed State funds, we must demolish his house and deport his family to Gaza.”
6:52PM: CNN, true to form, has this headline:
Jerusalem bulldozer ‘terrorist’ kills 3 in rampage
Here’s their justification for the quotation marks:
Israeli authorities are investigating why a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem rammed his bulldozer into several cars and buses Wednesday, killing three people before Israeli police shot him dead.
Israeli authorities are labeling it a terrorist attack, although they say there is no clear motive and the man — a construction worker — acted alone. It is not known if he had links to any terrorist organization.
So let’s get this straight. The man cries “Allah Akhbar” and deliberately kills innocent people, yet the motive is still not clear?
Nice one, CNN.
8:13PM: The Knesset has approved two bills that will enable the government to revoke the citizenship of Israeli Arabs involved in terror activities as well as that of their families.
‘Bout bloody time.
9:05PM: As Honest Reporting points out, the BBC’s original headline for the report on today’s terror attack was Israel bulldozer driver shot dead.
I kid you not.
9:12PM: Commenter Daniel writes:
Dutch TV just reported it’s not a terrorist attack at all. Just a desperate individual.
9:25PM: “Ahmad? You are with the bulldozer driver’s family? Excellent. Make sure you take a picture of them holding a picture of him. And make sure it is a picture that makes him look gentle, intelligent and refined. Such as one of him in a suit and tie. Thanks Ahmad. I know I can count on you.”
A picture shows a portrait of Hussam Tarysir Dwayat, the Palestinian bulldozer driver who executed an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian killed three people and wounded 45 more as he rammed a bulldozer into buses and cars in Jerusalem on Wednesday before being shot dead by Israeli police who branded it a terror attack. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
10:37PM: Ynet reports on the miraculous survival of a five-month old baby girl who lost her mother in the attack.
11:15PM: Two of the victims have been identified.
Jerusalem residents Bat Sheva Unterman, 33, and Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, 54, were killed in the attack, as was a third person whose identity has not yet been released.
Unterman was a resident of Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood, and worked as a nanny in a religious kingergarten in the city’s Har Homa quarter. She was killed when the car she was driving was crushed by the oncoming bulldozer.
Unterman’s 6-month old daughter, Efrat, was evacuated from the car just before the vehicle was hit.
Her husband, Ido, was notified only hours after the attack that his wife had been killed.
Unterman was the daughter of Rifka and James Lubenstein, immigrants from Holland. Her husband, Ido, was the grandson of Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, who served as chief rabbi of Liverpool and of Tel Aviv, and also as chief rabbi of Israel from 1964-1973.
The Unterman couple had tried for years to have children, but managed only with the birth of Efrat last year. Bat-Sheva had extended her maternity leave by a few months, returning to work last week with her daughter to celebrate the end of the year party.
Unterman’s friend, Meira Schwartz, described her as a person filled with faith, who never gave up her dream of having children, even after having to go through countless procedures.
“Until Efrat was born, the children in the kindergarten were like her own, and she was a nanny of the highest excellence, with exemplary patience for each and ever child,” said Schwartz.
Unterman will be laid to rest at 11:30 P.M. in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.
‘It’s difficult to speak about her in past tense’
Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, originally from Austria, was a resident of Katamon who worked as a teacher in a school for the blind. She was laid to rest at 10:30 P.M. in Givat Shaul.
Goren-Friedman was divorced and the mother of three children: Yael, 16, Issachar, 19, and Zvi, 23. Both of her sons were students at the Horev hesder yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Her friends described her as a “wonderful person,” who volunteered regularly at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
Rachel Sakrovish, who worked with Goren-Friedman, said her colleague was an excellent teachers. “It’s hard to speak about her in the last tense. Lili was a wonderful person. There was not a student that she did not help progress on a personal, educational, and rehabilitative level. We knew that if a student was retreated or having difficulties, Luly was the teacher who would do the fundamental work to help him advance.”
“When I think of her, I remember the phrase, ‘a woman of valor, who can find,’” she said
May their blood be avenged.
Filed Under: General
About the Author: An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.
Dave, please delete this comment in support of killing innocents please. It goes against all moral decency.
Thank you for the quick response! And thank you for the updates, being away from home when catastrophe strikes pains my heart. That said, I could have very easily been on that bus had I been home.
I actually deleted that comment as soon as I saw it.
I have been on that bus many times before. Scary stuff.
Bulldozing To Terror…
Today witnessed unbelievable carnage in Jerusalem as a Palestinian terrorist used a bulldozer to murder Israelis along a busy thoroughfare in Jerusalem. The tally right now is at least three dead and 44 wounded, including a baby who was thrown from a…..
[...] here from Israellycool [...]
The religion of peace!
I think it’s fascinating that the squeamish BBC can’t bring themselves to show the entire footage of the young man and the police officer actually firing the shots that killed the creep. For me, seeing the jerk get his due justice helps to balance the horror of his Sudden Jihad Syndrome massacre of innocent bystanders. Street justice rid the world of an evil man (now if we could just rid the world of the cultural mindset that produced him).
Hats off to Mr. Plesser and Mr. Mizrahi.
My heart goes out to all of the innocent victims and their families and refuah sheleimah to the injured.
I am so proud that Israel has such brave citizens who think quickly – risking their own lives to save others. What heroes Plesser and Mizrahi are!!!
Horrible attack; but I can’t see any moral justification for punishing the man’s family. Certainly not without a trial to see if any of them aided or abetted him.
It seems like a guaranteed method of generating more terrorism.
Respect to the two who tackled him – he could have been wearing a suicide belt.
Good reporting, thanks.
I see those people reacting, jumping on that tractor and killing that guy. I’m thinking two things:
Disproportionate force
Good
I had the same feelings during Operation Defensive Shield and the 2nd Lebanon war. It takes a lot of nerve to hit back, to exract a price. I think it’s easier to go into victim mode, that’s what we do in Europe. Side with the killers and surrender. We’re masochists.
It’s actually a relief Israeli’s still have that basic decency to kill those who attempt to kill them. It’s what we owe to the victims.
Dutch TV just reported it’s not a terrorist attack at all. Just a desperate individual.
Scuze me, I feel sick
“I think it’s fascinating that the squeamish BBC can’t bring themselves to show the entire footage of the young man and the police officer actually firing the shots that killed the creep.”
Small children watch the BBC.
Don, no offense, but you simply do not understand the middle eastern mindset. Here in the West, we focus on the individual. In the middle east, the focus is on family and clan. That is why it is considered acceptable for a member of the clan to effectively give his life up for the advancement of the family as a whole.
Now if the family as a whole understands that they are the ones who are going to pay the price for the behavior of an individual, then they are going to take whatever steps necessary to rein in the behavior of that individual.
You may consider this barbaric. Well, I’m sorry, but there is no point to saving one aspect of civilized behavior at the cost of our lives.
I want to point out something else, there was absolutely no attempt made on the part of the security forces to use nonlethal methods to stop this dog. The truth is, they probably would have been just as effective if they fired at his legs rather than his head. The reason they didn’t bother is because, I suspect, the populace as a whole no longer trusts the government to properly protect them from these murderers, so they resort to street justice.
Some commentators here applaud street justice. I do not. Because street justice, by definition, is something that someone does based on however he feels at the moment. It is very plausible to imagine situations where the “justice” is anything but.
Furthermore, a living terrorist is a useful source of information. And, if the Israeli government was not filled with incompetent frauds, it would also be useful as a bargaining chip.
I say they are incompetent frauds, because you do not trade 500 murderers for 5 Israeli soldiers. You certainly do not trade 5 murderers for 2 murdered Jews. That is not a price worth paying. But because they did it, the public is no longer interested in keeping these pieces of human excrement alive for use as bargaining chips.
It only adds to our collective humiliation and, even worse, it adds to our collective danger.
Thanks to this governments policies all Jews now understand that their dead corpses can be used as bargaining chips to get murderers out of prison. This is a “bargain” no one needs or has any interest in. Hence the street justice.
-ron
Melanie Phillips on the BBC’s and the Guardian’s reporting of the incident.
Excellent live-blogging by you and Carl, Dave. I can already anticipate how the BBC will eventually spin this: “Jewish vigilante assassinates Palestinian Construction Worker”.
BHG
Ron:
Perhaps I am out of touch with what goes in in this post-Arafat, post-Saddam Hussein world, but could it be that one of the Israeli government’s motives in revoking the citizenship of terrorists’ kin is that the families of “shahids” are compensated for the deceased’s despicable act and expected to publicly endorse it?
Certainly, I recall the mother of the woman who attempted to blow up the Israeli hospital that treated the daughter’s burns resulting from a cooking accident was all for her sons becoming human bombs, but not her daughter, as it would have left her two grandchildren motherless.
Dismember the body of this scum and bury it with pig entrails.
Just a minor quibble, but it says something that every single report refers to that equipment as a bulldozer. That’s an articulated end-loader, not even a close relative to a bulldozer. I find it interesting that not one single reporter had ever worked around construction, even in a military context.
Yeah, I know; pretty minor stuff, but it’s the equivalent of calling a personnel carrier a tank when the former is for protection and the latter is an offensive weapon. Anyway, thanks for the updates.
Thank God that Israeli’s have the guts to take on terrorist scum like this.
People in Turlock, CA would do well to heed the actions of brave Israeli’s.
I love the Israeli’s!
Lynne:
This isn’t a post-arafat or post-saddam mentality. This is simply the culture of the Middle East. I think (tho I could be wrong), that this is also one of the reasons why you will notice how so many Sephardi Jews, religious or otherwise, generally have the “bomb-them-all-to-hell” mentality at the current moment.
It’s because they simply understand that aspect of the culture. These things just don’t happen without the express approval of the family in general. Particularly whoever is the head of that family.
Personally, I haven’t the slightest problem with Arabs, if anything, I prefer them to just about every other cultural group. But I just know that if you don’t call them on their bullshit, it will never end.
Let me give you an example. My uncle told me about a girl who was being recruited to be a shahid. Her brothers found out, physically prevented her from having any contact with her handler, and made it clear to all concerned that their sister wasn’t going to self-detonate for Allah. And if the handler didn’t like it, he was welcome to take it up with them.
Now of course, I cannot confirm this story. But it sounds right to me, so make of it what you will.
-ron
I echo ron, but from a different angle.
I used to be in a sandwich shop in a rough section of town, once or twice a day. We worked on a nearby project and I liked the family that ran it.
9/12/01 I was in there for breakfast and the patriarch came over to my table. He had never before more than smiled at me, as a customer, but he absolutely raised Hell and waved towards the TV. Obviously, he was pissed. I asked his daughter, later, where they were from and she said, “We’re Palistinian.” I understand that’s more of a political statement than one of geography, but that was not her point. Her Dad was pissed off and so was the entire family.
It was not at all like polling a family we would recognize, in which everyone had different views. There was a family position that was projected publically, in unison.
“Horrible attack; but I can’t see any moral justification for punishing the man’s family. Certainly not without a trial to see if any of them aided or abetted him.”
Too bad. In future, a useless murderer who clearly does not care about his own pathetic existence might reflect on the pain his actions will cause to his own family.
If it was up to me, I’d piss on his body, stuff him with pig fat and dececrate any thing he might find holy. There should be no reward for these horrific actions in the little minds of these mental midgets.
The late great Kahane was right about so many things which are now coming to fruition. The only way Israel survives is they elect a hardliner who will round up and deport these enemies within amongsts other things
[...] a good real-time account of the story, including video links, see IsraellyCool [...]
“Now if the family as a whole understands that they are the ones who are going to pay the price for the behavior of an individual, then they are going to take whatever steps necessary to rein in the behavior of that individual.”
When the head of a family is crazy, it is very hard for the rest of the family to do much about it. I sill say it is morally wrong to punish one person for the actions of another, unless you can show that they aided and abetted.
Don:
Whether the head of a family is crazy, sane, or both, is utterly irrelevant to me. My one, and overriding concern is the preservation and enhancement of the lives of my brothers.
Given that, if I knew that punishing the heads of families that harbor terrorists was a workable solution, then it would be morally wrong in my view to not do so. I do not know that it would work, I am only proposing it because it seems to me that it would. I note that you did not object to it as something that wouldn’t work, rather as something “morally wrong”.
In any case, perhaps it is morally superior to let Palestinians and Jews fire machine guns at each other in the streets rather than throw out the lunatics who encourage the violence in the first place. I wouldn’t know, I’m not an ethicist. However, I think it far preferable to take those who encourage or abet murder of innocents and throw them out … provided that would work.
-ron
It looked to me that the lad in the blue T-shirt w/ the automatic pistol, looks like he shot the man up in the cab of the front-end loader wearing a neon-green safety vest, as well as the driver.
The green-vested guy was wrestling the driver (there was another guy in the cab, too) fine, until blue T-shirt opened fire FROM OUTSIDE THE CAB. Next thing the vested one’s head is lolling around like he was hit.
Did anyone see that?
4 sale one JCB, hardly used. Only wear and tear 4 Israeli bloodstains and several thousand Palestinian ones.
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