26 people were wounded, one of them severely, 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 the 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, shown in this picture actually taking place.
The police reported that At around 2 pm, eyewitnesses reported seeing a bulldozer driver running wild in the city and overturning cars. Large rescue forces were dispatched to the area immediately. A police investigation revealed that the driver came from a construction site near the Yemin Moshe neighborhood and hit two vehicles. A civilian shot him, but the bulldozer continued driving. Border Guard officers shot at the driver and killed him. At least 23 people were injured in the incident, one sustaining the loss of a leg. 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. The man who fatally shot the terrorist is 53-year-old Yaki Asael from Susia, an IDF Company Commander (ret.), teacher and a farmer, with 8 children and 6 grandchildren.
Kobi Zaken was at a nearby jewelry store at the time of the attack and said, "I walked on the street. When I entered the store I saw the tractor smashing into the bus. Afterwards, the tractor continued straight towards a Peugeot vehicle and crushed it. I saw someone screaming inside, the driver continued going wild and smashed into a Mercedes, the car flipped and I saw his leg sever from his body. I heard a shot and then the police arrived."
Avi Levy, a driver on bus line 13 (belonging to the same line of the bus that was overturned in the previous attack), which the terrorist tried harming with his tractor managed to continue driving and thus saved his life and that of the passengers. Recounting the events he said, “I drove on Kind David Street and suddenly he burst in from Washington Street and hit my right back wheel with the tractor scoop. At the beginning I didn’t understand who hit me and I looked back in the mirror and didn’t see a thing. I looked in my left mirror and suddenly I see him turn around quickly, striking passengers’ windows on the left side, one strike and then immediately another." 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.”
Dina, who works near the scene of the incident, said, "There are a lot of ambulances and police cars here. We heard three or four shots fired at the bulldozer driver." "I saw the tractor behind the bus, he passed it and continued towards a private vehicle. He flipped the car with the tractor's scoop and started going wild on the street," eyewitness Hilit Re'em recalled. Arik Bloom, manager of the nearby Paradiso restaurant, said, "It was a yellow tractor, smaller than the one used in the previous attack at the beginning of the month. He flipped three cars on their sides. Border Guard forces fired towards the driver until he was neutralized."
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