Palestinian kills three in bulldozer rampage
7/2/2008 - 6:08:57 PMA Palestinian driving a bulldozer went on a deadly rampage in Jerusalem today, killing at least three people and wounding 45 before he was shot dead by security officers.
The violence, the first major attack in Jerusalem since March, wreaked havoc and left a swathe of damage on Jaffa Road, a main road in Jerusalem.
Traffic was halted, and hundreds of people fled through the streets in panic as medics treated the wounded.
Three Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli police referred to the attacker as a “terrorist” acting on his own.
Israeli police said the man was a bulldozer operator who worked in the area for a local construction firm.
The attack took place in front of a building housing several media outlets. BBC footage captured the bulldozer crushing a vehicle and an off-duty soldier shooting the perpetrator in the head several times at point-blank range as onlookers screamed.
Half a dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus also was overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.
Israel’s national rescue service confirmed three deaths.
Israeli TV said a woman driving a car in the bulldozer’s path threw her baby girl out the window to save the child. The baby escaped unscathed, but the woman was injured.
“I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver’s seat,” said Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old student.
Eli Mizrahi, an officer in a special anti-terror unit, said he and his partner sped to the scene on a motorcycle from the nearby Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. An off-duty soldier had just shot the attacker, but not killed him.
“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,” Mr Mizrahi told reporters.
Today’s attack represented a chilling departure from militants’ previous methods, which were mostly suicide bombings and shootings.
During the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in late 2000, Jerusalem experienced dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks.
The city has been largely quiet in the past three years, though sporadic attacks have persisted. In March, a Palestinian gunman entered a Jerusalem seminary and killed eight young students.
The three organisations that took responsibility for the attack included the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, which is loosely affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement.
The other two are 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.
The Hamas militant group, which runs the Gaza Strip and is currently maintaining a fragile ceasefire with Israel, said it did not carry out the attack but nevertheless praised it.
“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 Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called the attack a “senseless act of murderous violence”.
“Those who refuse to condemn this act of terror are exposing themselves for what they really are – namely the enemies of fundamental human values,” he said.
Despite the Palestinian claims of responsibility, Israeli police chief Dudi Cohen said the attacker appeared to be acting alone. “It looks as if it was a spontaneous act,” he said.
Mr Abbas’ aide Saeb Erekat condemned the violence.
“We condemn any attacks that target civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinians,” he said.
Major Israeli retaliation seems unlikely given the police chief’s claim that the attacker acted alone and the Jewish state’s desire to maintain the Gaza ceasefire and to support Mr Abbas’ security forces in the West Bank.
Israeli police said the man, a father of two children in his 30s, was an Arab from east Jerusalem and had a criminal background. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said he had worked as a construction worker on the railway project.
Later today, five military vehicles gathered outside the man’s home in east Jerusalem. Family elders sat on the balcony, and several dozen villagers sat in front of the home.
Police entered the house, took pictures and questioned relatives for an hour before leaving without making arrests.
Friends of the family identified the attacker as Hussam Dwikat, 29. They said he was a devout Muslim, but had no known ties to any militant groups.
“Everybody is in shock. When I was told what happened I started to curse Hussam because this is the first time he has done something like this,” said Salayan Weyed, a friend of the attacker’s wife.
In contrast to West Bank Palestinians, Arab residents of Jerusalem have full freedom to work and travel throughout Israel. Many Jerusalem Arabs work in the construction industry.
About two thirds of Jerusalem’s 700,000 residents are Jews, and the rest are Palestinians who came under Israeli control when Israel captured their part of the city in 1967.
Israel’s national rescue service said at least 45 people were wounded in Wednesday’s attack.
At one point, witnesses said a traffic policewoman shot at the driver, after which he slumped over with his eyes closed. Then he suddenly lifted himself back up and continued his rampage, the witnesses said.