Jerusalem bulldozer driver shot dead after ramming vehicles
World
Jerusalem bulldozer driver shot dead after ramming vehicles
A bulldozer driver in Jerusalem was shot dead after he rammed into a bus and a police car in what Israeli police called a terror attack. A bulldozer hit an empty bus and a police car on Begin Boulevard near the busy Malcha shopping mall, said a statement from the Magen David Adom medical rescue service. Two people are lightly injured at the site and the bulldozer driver has been shot and killed, it said. Officials later said the wounded were police officers. The driver of the vehicle was killed when a nearby police officer and a passing taxi driver shot him, police said. A police officer at the site saw the tractor lifting the police vehicle into the air and opened fire at the driver, Niso Shaham, deputy head of Jerusalem police told reporters at the site of the incident. Several seconds later a taxi driver joined in the firing, he said. We have no doubt this was a terror attack, Shaham said. Police said the identity of the driver was not immediately known because no identification papers were found on the body. The driver apparently belonged to the Arab minority, Shaham said. We could not immediately identify the driver because he did not have an identity card on him. He added an open Koran was found inside the bulldozer. Police officers and rescue personnel swarmed the area minutes after the attack. The orange bulldozer had windows shattered and the mangled police car was rammed against a grey tourist bus. This marks the third such incident in nine months in the Holy City. On July 2, a Palestinian killed three Israelis and wounded 45 more as he rammed a bulldozer into buses and cars in downtown Jerusalem before being shot dead. The perpetrator was a 30-year-old east Jerusalem man who worked for an Israeli company at a nearby construction site. Although Israel called the incident a terrorist attack, later information indicated it was a spontaneous incident carried out by a father of two with a criminal past but no known links to armed groups. Three weeks later 16 people were wounded in a similar incident, with the attacker also killed. In that case, another Palestinian from annexed east Jerusalem ploughed into several cars near the posh King David Hotel the day before then US presidential candidate Barack Obama visited the region. Some 250,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem. While they are not Israeli citizens, they have Israel identity cards, have freedom of movement around the country and receive social welfare benefits. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community. Israel calls east Jerusalem its eternal, undivided capital, while the Palestinians want to make it the capital of their promised state. The status of the Holy City is one of the main obstacles in the stalled Middle East peace process.
