2008 Jerusalem bulldozer attack explained

Jerusalem bulldozer attack
Location:Jerusalem
Coordinates:31.7883°N 35.2064°W
Time-Begin:11:55 a.m.
Time-End:12:10 p.m.
Timezone:UTC+3
Type:Vehicle-ramming attack
Fatalities:3 civilians (+1 attacker)[1]
Injuries:40
Assailant:Hussam Taysir Duwait

On July 2, 2008, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem identified as Hussam Taysir Duwait (also referred to as Hussam Duwiyat, Hossam Dawyyat,[2] or erroneously as Jabr Duwait[3]) attacked several cars on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem in a vehicle-ramming attack using a front-end loader (erroneously referred to as a bulldozer in the media), killing three civilians and wounding at least thirty other pedestrians, before being shot to death.[4] [5] Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said that an inquiry indicated the attacker had been acting alone.[6] A motive for the attack could not immediately be determined, but police at the scene referred to the incident as a terrorist attack.[7] Three copycat attacks have occurred since then.

This attack was the second incident in 2008 in which an Israeli Arab committed a violent act in west Jerusalem while carrying an Israeli ID Card (allowing for freedom of movement and travel throughout Israel), the first being the Mercaz HaRav massacre in early March 2008.[8] On April 7, 2009, Duwait's house was demolished as a declared deterrent against future attacks, the first such demolition since 2005.

Attack

Preliminary investigations suggest the Caterpillar 966 front-end loader was taken from a nearby construction site on Jaffa Road. The perpetrator then drove the vehicle against traffic, before hitting an Egged public bus near the city's old Central Bus Station. The impact flipped the bus onto its side, hitting nearby vehicles and pedestrians.[9] The perpetrator, Hussam Taysir Duwait, was also heard yelling "Allahu Akbar" during the attack.[8] After a traffic policewoman had shot the driver, the vehicle came to a halt but then started again and crushed another car, killing another person.[4] [10]

At the point when the vehicle had stopped for the first time, three men had climbed up to the cabin: A 20-year-old off-duty soldier from Jerusalem, Moshe Plesser, who had recently enlisted at the Israel Defense Forces,[3] [11] an unnamed policeman, and Oron Ben Shimon, an armed civilian and manager of a regional security firm.[12] According to Oron, while he was struggling with the driver inside the cabin, trying to get his feet off the accelerator and take over the wheel, he shouted at the soldier to shoot the driver.[12] The soldier then grabbed Oron's handgun and killed Duwait with three shots to the head at point blank range.[9] [13] After the vehicle had immediately come to a halt again, motorcycle policeman Eli Mizrahi climbed the cabin and fired two more shots.[9] [14]

Haaretz quotes the soldier as saying that "I got closer to the bulldozer, the whole time looking for my weapon to shoot him."[9] Coincidentally, the soldier is the brother-in-law of Captain David Shapira, the paratrooper officer who shot and killed the perpetrator in the Mercaz HaRav massacre.[12]

The moments during which the perpetrator was shot and killed have been filmed from at least two different angles,[15] which accounts for the greater level of directly available descriptive detail in comparison to the original attack which is documented only through eyewitnesses on the scene as well as images that were taken mostly after the incident itself.One witness is quoted as saying that Duwait was armed and "shooting at a police officer".[16]

Fatalities

Perpetrator

Duwait, a 32-year-old father of two from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sur Baher, was carrying an Israeli identity card, and was hired by a local construction firm for the Jerusalem Light Rail.[7]

Three Palestinian organizations took responsibility for the attack: the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Galilee Freedom Battalion (Hebrew: גדודי חופשיי הגליל), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Despite the Palestinian claims of responsibility, Israeli police chief Dudi Cohen said the attacker appeared to be acting alone and that "it looks as if it was a spontaneous act."[14] Some two hours after the attack, a Hamas spokesman said that the attack is "a natural response to Israeli aggression." Nevertheless, he stressed that Hamas did not know who was behind the attack.[20]

Shimon Kokos, the lawyer of the perpetrator's family, said that Hussam "had not belonged to any militant organization and may have acted out of temporary insanity" and that, "had [he] not been killed during his rampage, it is doubtful whether he would have been judged fit to stand trial."[21] "My son never spoke of plans to carry out such an attack, if he had I would have tried to prevent it," Duwait's father, Tayseer told The Media Line as police officers were about to question him.[22]

A Jewish ex-girlfriend of Duwait, commented that "he really didn't hate Jews. The fact is that he was with me. It's insanity, but the motivation was not nationalist" and also that his bad temper may have been related to his "[smoking] a lot of drugs."[23] Other people have gone on the record as well alleging regular drug abuse by Duwait, one neighbour saying that he was "a drug addict [...]. He'd shoot up all the time. [...] He was really just a junkie."[24]

Aftermath

Israeli Border Guard officers ordered the Duwait family to remove the mourning tent they erected in the neighborhood for their son. A Border Guard patrol passing through the area identified the construction of the tent and ordered the family to remove it. The family then disassembled the tent without any noted resistance.[25] [26] Two days after the attack, defense minister Ehud Barak ordered the demolition of Duwait's and Alaa Abu Dhein's (perpetrator of the Mercaz HaRav massacre) houses, as a stated deterrent against future attacks.[27] Following the supreme court rejection of appeals by Duwait's family, his home was razed on April 7, 2009, the first such demolition since a military commission recommended against such action in 2005.[28] During the demolition, police shot dead a Palestinian motorist who ran over and injured three police officers.[29]

Bulldozer attack of July 22

On July 22, another east Jerusalem Arab resident, Ghassan Abu Tir, rammed his bulldozer (this time it was a smaller backhoe loader) into cars and a bus on King David street in Jerusalem. He wounded 24 people, including one whose leg was partially severed. He was subsequently killed by a fusillade of gunfire from a Border Policeman and an armed pedestrian. The attack was seen as a copycat act of the July 2 attack, causing fears of repeated copycat acts in an emerging new terrorist tactic of vehicle ramming attacks.[30] [31] The attack happened just down the road from the hotel where Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was due to stay as part of a multi-country visit.[32]

BMW attack

See main article: Jerusalem BMW attack. On September 22, 2008, Qassem Mughrabi, a resident of East Jerusalem, drove a black BMW into a group of off-duty soldiers standing on a Jerusalem street injuring 19.[33] [34] Mughrabi was subsequently shot dead by one of the soldiers. Police spokesmen asserted the event was a terrorist attack, not an accident.[35]

March 5, 2009, attack

Two police officers were lightly wounded in Jerusalem when an Arab bulldozer driver overturned their police car and rammed it into a bus, before being fatally shot by police and an armed taxi driver. The attack occurred around 1 P.M. near the Malha shopping mall, on Menachem Begin Boulevard in southern Jerusalem. Police said that a copy of the Koran had been found in the bulldozer after the attack, and that the driver had not been carrying any identification. Israel Police and local residents later identified the man as Marei Radaydeh, a West Bank construction worker in his mid-20s who lived with his family in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina. Radaydeh was married and had a daughter. Hamas praised the attack, calling it a "natural response" to Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in Arab East Jerusalem and to Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip.[36]

Official reactions

Involved parties

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack stating "We want peaceful solutions through negotiations."[40]

Supranational

Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General expressed condolences to the relatives of the dead victims, and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.[42]

International

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the attack, calling it a "horrific act."[43]

President of the United States, George W. Bush spoke over the phone with Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to express his condolences with the people of Israel, for the "murderous terrorist attack."[44]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Construction Vehicle Kills 3 in Israel Attack . . Kershner . Isabel . Cowell . Alan . July 3, 2008 . May 6, 2010 . April 16, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090416030238/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03mideast.html . live.
  2. News: Olmert, Barak: Demolish terrorists' homes . July 2, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . July 12, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080712202207/http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3563167,00.html . live.
  3. Web site: Three dead in terror attack . July 2, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . July 7, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080707183302/http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/world/c-9500/three-dead-in-terror-attack/ . live.
  4. Web site: Two teachers among the dead in Jerusalem attack . July 3, 2008 . . July 3, 2008 . July 4, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080704220800/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998400.html . live.
  5. News: 3 killed as Palestinian bulldozer driver goes on killing spree in Jerusalem . July 2, 2008 . . July 2, 2008 . July 5, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080705050525/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3562991,00.html . live.
  6. News: Deadly Jerusalem bulldozer attack . BBC . July 2, 2008 . June 11, 2009 . July 21, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080721080349/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7485022.stm . live.
  7. News: Jerusalem bulldozer 'terrorist' kills 3 in rampage. CNN (via WUSA) . June 16, 2009 . July 2, 2008 .
  8. News: 'He cried Allah Akhbar and hit the gas' . Jpost . July 3, 2008 . July 3, 2008 . May 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210512114409/https://www.jpost.com/Israel/He-cried-Allah-Akhbar-and-hit-the-gas . live.
  9. Web site: At least four dead, dozens hurt in Jerusalem terror attack . July 2, 2008 . . July 2, 2008 . July 4, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080704220752/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998294.html . live.
  10. Web site: GTD ID:200807020027. Global Terrorism Database. 2023-08-12.
  11. News: IDF Awards Soldier Who Stopped Tractor Terrorist . September 2, 2009 . . March 12, 2013 . March 26, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140326012639/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/170447#.UT9TDocqZ8E . live.
  12. News: Young recruit left his bike, felled bulldozer terrorist . Azoulay . Yuval . Jonathan Lis . Nadav Shragai . July 3, 2008 . . July 3, 2008 . July 11, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080711030919/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998409.html . live.
  13. News: Policeman shoots and kills Jerusalem terrorist during rampage . Haaretz Staff and Channel 10 . July 2, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . July 5, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080705081845/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998340.html . live.
  14. Web site: Bulldozer plows into cars, buses in Jerusalem . July 2, 2008 . . November 22, 2019 . September 23, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200923223943/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25489631 . live.
  15. News: Dramatic video of attacker's killing . July 2, 2008 . Reuters . July 3, 2008 . May 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210512114429/https://www.reuters.com/video/top-news . live.
  16. News: Jerusalem bus driver: Terrorist looked me in the eye and drove at me . July 2, 2008 . Haaretz Service and News Agencies . July 2, 2008 . July 5, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080705041616/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998299.html . live.
  17. Web site: Batsheva Unterman . GxMSDev . December 16, 2014 . September 30, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130930001837/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Memorial/2008/Bulldozer/Batsheva+Unterman.htm . live.
  18. Web site: Elizabeth (Lili) Goren-Friedman . GxMSDev . December 16, 2014 . September 30, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130930001714/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Memorial/2008/Bulldozer/Elizabeth+Goren-Friedman.htm . live.
  19. Web site: Jean Relevy . GxMSDev . December 16, 2014 . April 24, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130424030429/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Memorial/2008/Bulldozer/Jean+Reloy.htm . live.
  20. News: Palestinian kills 3 in Jerusalem bulldozer attack . July 2, 2008 . . July 2, 2008 . December 10, 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191210174354/http://uk.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUKL0243020020080702 . live.
  21. Web site: Bulldozer killer may have been temporarily insane: lawyer . July 3, 2008 . July 4, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080710114406/http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1414837.php . July 10, 2008 . dead.
  22. Bulldozer Attack Shakes Jerusalem . July 2, 2008 . . September 2, 2010 . April 20, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100420155201/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1819720,00.html . dead.
  23. News: Jerusalem attacker had Jewish lover, child . 2008 . . NBC News . July 4, 2008 . March 6, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140306002720/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25534995/ . live.
  24. Web site: A junkie and a martyr . Issacharoff . Avi . Amos Harel . . July 5, 2008.
  25. Web site: Police Order Terrorist's Family to Remove Tent . July 3, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . August 3, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080803040023/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/149328 . live.
  26. Web site: Terrorist's mourning tent dismantled . July 3, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . May 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210512114440/https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Terrorists-mourning-tent-dismantled . live.
  27. News: Police conclude Jerusalem bulldozer killer acted alone . June 6, 2008 . Haaretz . September 26, 2010 . November 2, 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121102054029/http://www.haaretz.com/news/police-conclude-jerusalem-bulldozer-killer-acted-alone-1.249181 . live.
  28. News: Police kill Palestinian assailant at demolition of terrorist's home . Haaretz . Jonathan . Lis . April 7, 2009 . September 26, 2010 . November 2, 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121102054055/http://www.haaretz.com/news/police-kill-palestinian-assailant-at-demolition-of-terrorist-s-home-1.273712 . live.
  29. News: Palestinian 'attacker' shot dead . BBC News . April 7, 2009 . September 26, 2010 . November 4, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141104130018/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/7987317.stm . live.
  30. News: Palestinian in construction truck rams cars . Copans . Laurie . July 22, 2008 . USA Today . . September 6, 2011 . May 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210512114411/https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-07-22-2292351145_x.htm . live.
  31. News: Israelis hit by new digger attack . July 22, 2008 . . July 22, 2008 . January 15, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090115164120/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7519404.stm . live.
  32. News: Bulldozer in Jerusalem rampage before Obama visit . Harrison . Rebecca . July 23, 2008 . Reuters . July 25, 2008 . November 12, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201112212051/https://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2252341920080723 . live.
  33. News: September 22, 2008 . 'J'lem terrorist was a Hamas member' . Etgar . Lefkovits . The Jerusalem Post . July 19, 2009 . May 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210512114433/https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Jlem-terrorist-was-a-Hamas-member . live.
  34. News: Terrorist in car rams 19 in J'lem . Jonathan . Lis . Haaretz . July 19, 2009.
  35. News: Palestinian Car Rams Israelis . Isabel . Kershner . September 22, 2008 . The New York Times . July 19, 2009 . October 6, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141006130710/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/world/middleeast/23jerusalem.html?ref=world . live.
  36. News: Two policemen hurt in bulldozer terror attack in Jerusalem . . April 3, 2009 . July 19, 2009 . April 16, 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090416073906/http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1068909.html . live.
  37. News: Olmert: We can't fence-off east Jerusalem Arabs . July 2, 2008 . November 8, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161108010406/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3563364,00.html . live.
  38. News: Israel to destroy attacker's home . July 4, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . April 9, 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120409130614/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7490212.stm . live.
  39. News: Peres: I was Proud of the Soldier Who Fired . IsraelNationalNews.com . July 2, 2008 . July 2, 2008 . July 5, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080705052933/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/149290 . live.
  40. Web site: Israel weighs Jerusalem separation . The New York Times . July 3, 2008 . June 8, 2017 . November 27, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201127072709/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/africa/03iht-mideast.4.14214675.html . live.
  41. Web site: Terrorist plows bulldozer into vehicles . Lefkovits . Etgar . The Jerusalem Post . July 2, 2008 . June 8, 2017 . bot: unknown . http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20080918100101/http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214726186987&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull . September 18, 2008.
  42. News: Ban Ki-Moon Expresses Condolences . July 2, 2008 . August 3, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080803032024/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/149292 . live.
  43. News: Israel demands UN condemnation of attack . Yitzhak . Benhorin . July 2, 2008 . . July 19, 2009 . October 11, 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20081011233058/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3563334,00.html . live.
  44. Web site: Bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem . July 2, 2008 . . July 4, 2008 . November 15, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201115025122/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbP45VON0hU&gl=AU . live.

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