2014 Jerusalem tractor attack
| 2014 Jerusalem tractor attack | |
|---|---|
| Location | Jerusalem, Israel |
| Date | 4 August 2014 |
|
Attack type
|
Vehicular attack |
| Deaths | 2 (including the attacker) |
|
Non-fatal injuries
|
5 |
| Perpetrators | Muhammed Naif El-Ja'abis |
The 2014 Jerusalem tractor attack was a terrorist ramming attack that occurred on 4 August 2014, when an Arab drove an excavator type of tractor out of a construction site, injuring several pedestrians and killing one man before ramming the tractor into a public bus, overturning the bus and then hitting it repeatedly. The terrorist was shot dead at the scene by a police officer while still seated at the wheel of the tractor and continuing to attack the bus by swinging the arm of the excavator against it.
The Jerusalem Post described it as part of a series of terrorist vehicular attacks in recent years.
The attacker drove an excavator tractor out of a work site into a Shmuel HaNavi Street, a major street in central Jerusalem near the Olive Tree Hotel. He knocked down several pedestrians before ramming the public bus, which was empty except for the driver. One of the pedestrians, 30-year-old Avraham Waltz, was run over by the tractor and killed, while seven others were injured. After overturning the bus, the driver continued attacking by swinging the tractor's mechanical digging arm into the bus. Two police officers at the scene fired at and killed the attacker.
The attack echoed earlier terrorist vehicle ramming attacks in which vehicles were commandeered and used as weapons to run over pedestrians and attack other vehicles.
Several days after the attack, the newspaper Haaretz filed a complaint with the police. While the headline about this attack published by Haaretz read "Soldier wounded in Jerusalem shooting, hours after digger attack kills one", a fake article pretending to be from Haaretz circulated on social media under a headline that read, "Bulldozer and bus in Jerusalem road accident". The fake article continued:
The Haaretz police complaint alleged that, "The purpose of the article and those who circulated it was to mislead the public into thinking that this was the article Haaretz had published about the terror attack this week in which an Israeli man was killed in Jerusalem, in an effort to incite against the Haaretz newspaper and its owners, editors and writers". Authorities are investigating.
The police identified the assailant as Muhammed Naif El-Ja'abis, 23. The perpetrator came from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber. He was employed as an excavator operator at the scene of the attack. The police said that the attack was an act of terrorism. El-Ja'abis was already known to security officials before the attack.
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Wikipedia