Copycat dozer terror attack

A copycat terrorist managed to hurt sixteen people, but thankfully didn’t kill anyone. But not for lack of trying.

Levy very quickly understood that this was a terror attack and tried to escape. “I tried pulling the wheel and escaping him but I did not succeed and I began driving fast… The tractor driver bypassed me, raised the tractor scoop in the direction of my window, shattered it and I managed to evade him. He continued on his drive in the direction of the King David Street windmill.”

At the end of the incident, Levy managed to save the passengers’ lives due to his resourcefulness. “I managed to flee at the last minute. When it all ended everyone thanked me, passengers told me that I saved their lives. The passengers were frightened but thank God, aside from light injuries, everyone was saved.”

And the reason he didn’t kill anyone? Fast action by an armed Israeli civilian. Another case of guns saving lives.

Sixteen people were wounded, one of them moderately, as a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in central Jerusalem Tuesday afternoon in an apparent attempt to recreate the terror attack in the capital earlier this month.

The vehicle reportedly left a construction site near Yemin Moshe neighborhood and set off towards Liberty Bell Park (Gan Hapa’amon), near the corner of Keren Hayesod and King David streets. It drove a distance of approximately 160 meters, attempting to overturn a bus and crashing into four other vehicles – one of which it flipped over. The man was then shot dead by a civilian and a border policeman.

The police sealed off the area and are hunting for two accomplices. Sounds like the terrorists are trying to start intifada III after all.

The police reported that the terrorist was shot dead and that at least 18 people were injured in the incident, one sustaining moderate to serious wounds. He was evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The rest were lightly injured and evacuated to the Bikur Holim, Hadassha Mount Scopus and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals. A baby was lightly wounded by shrapnel.

And gee, it turns out this guy was related to a Hamasnik. What a surprise.

Palestinian sources in Jerusalem reported Tuesday that the man who carried out the bulldozer attack on Jerusalem’s King David Street was Ghasan Abu-Tir, 22, of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Tuba.

His relative, Hamas lawmaker Muhammad Abu-Tir, is jailed in Israel.

The mayor of Jerusalem had some interesting quotes. You’d never hear an American politician say things like this:

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, who arrived at the scene of Tuesday’s bulldozer, said that “this is another east Jerusalem resident from on of Jerusalem’s villages.”

He added, “You throw terrorists out the door, they climb through the window with all kinds of means and ideas. Every working tool becomes a means of terror and we must rethink how we employ those working here.”

And of course, if Israeli Arabs lose their jobs due to terrorist attacks, the world will blame Israel for not hiring them.

However: An armed populace is a populace a lot safer from terror attacks.