(photo: Cosimo Caridi, AIC)
The driver
of a Caterpillar construction vehicle was shot and killed after wounding
sixteen people and seriously injuring one just a few hours ago in West Jerusalem, on King David Street behind the King Solomon
hotel. The driver has been identified by
the Maan News Agency as 22-year-old Ghassan Abu Teir, from Umm Tuba in occupied
East Jerusalem. Abu Teir struck public transportation bus 13 and
crushed five other vehicles before being fatally shot eight times by Israeli security
forces.
AIC
reporters were some of the first on the scene and were able to capture video
footage and photographs of the event immediately after it happened.
“I heard
cars screeching and people screaming from the window of my apartment. I ran out to see what was happening and saw a
bulldozer slamming into the side of a bus.
When the bus did not turn over, the driver back up and slammed into it
again. Then it headed down the street, ramming
into many other cars along the way.
Everyone around me was in shock and I tried to run and do all I could to
help,” witness Nathanial Seidman exclaimed.
“I saw a
man running towards the bulldozer and then heard gun shots. The whole thing happened so quickly and my
heart is still beating out of my chest,” Seidman added.
(photo: Cosimo Caridi, AIC)
Sources at
Shaare Tzedek hospital, to where the persons injured in the incident were
taken, stated that one victim, defined in serious condition, is currently in
surgery to repair significant leg damage while the approximately other 15
persons suffered less serious crushing and shrapnel wounds.
This event
happened just three weeks after a similar attack near the Central Bus Station
in Jerusalem, in
which Husam Tayseer Dwayat, a resident of the Sur Baher village, killed three
people after slamming a front loader bulldozer into a public transportation bus
and several other vehicles.
A
problematic aspect of today’s attack for East Jerusalem Palestinians is that
this is the second attack in less than a month involving a resident from the
city. The AIC has just learned that the
Israeli police have occupied Ghassan Abu Teir’s family home in Umm Tuba and are
not allowing visitors to meet with the family.
According
to Dr. Naim Abu Teir, a Palestinian political activist and himself from Um
Tuba, “Israeli society should deeply analyze why such an event can occur and
what role it has to play. Israelis
should look at the rapidly deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the
Palestinians in East Jerusalem, together with
the ongoing stalemate in political negotiations. Palestinians are frustrated and losing hope.”
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