Jerusalem bulldozer attack

On July 2, 2008, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem identified as Hussam Taysir Duwait (also referred to as Hussam Duwiyat, Hossam Dawyyat, or erroneously as Jabr Duwait) 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 people and wounding at least thirty other pedestrians, before being shot to death. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said that an inquiry indicated the attacker had been acting alone. A motive for the attack could not immediately be determined, but police at the scene referred to the incident as a terrorist attack. 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. On April 7, 2009, Duwait's house was demolished as a declared deterrent against future attacks, the first such demolition since 2005.

The 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. The perpetrator, Hussam Taysir Duwait, was also heard yelling "Allahu Akbar" during the attack. 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.

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, an unnamed policeman, and Oron Ben Shimon, an armed civilian and manager of a regional security firm. 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. The soldier then grabbed Oron's handgun and killed Duwait with three shots to the head at point blank range. After the vehicle had immediately come to a halt again, motorcycle policeman Eli Mizrahi climbed the cabin and fired two more shots.

Haaretz quotes the soldier as saying that "I got closer to the bulldozer, the whole time looking for my weapon to shoot him." 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.

The moments during which the perpetrator was shot and killed have been filmed from at least two different angles, 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'.

Fatalities

* Batsheva Unterman, 33, of Jerusalem – a kindergarten teacher, and the wife of Ido Unterman, grandson of former Chief rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman

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