Blood and rage after Israel bulldozer rampage
Pastor Dale Morgan
Blood and rage after Israel bulldozer rampage*
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL Jul 02 2008 15:47
Their faces bloodied and voices shaking in anger, survivors of
Wednesday's deadly bulldozer rampage in west Jerusalem stared in
disbelief at the trail of destruction left by a Palestinian attacker.
Some yelled out in rage and frustration while others could only look on
in silence as rescue teams worked to remove the twisted remains of
vehicles crushed by the raging bulldozer.
The attacker was shot dead after he killed at least three people and
injured 45 by ramming two city buses and five cars.
One passenger spoke to journalists after climbing through a window to
get out of a bus that lay on its side on the city's busy Jaffa Road
after being rammed several times.
He refused to let medics attend a bleeding wound to his head, and
angrily blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the incident.
"All this is Olmert's fault," he snapped.
The bulldozer driver, a 30-year-old east Jerusalem Palestinian, was shot
dead by police after driving several hundred metres against the traffic
flow, stopping near the entrance to the bustling Mahane Yehuda market.
Gabi, a security guard at a nearby building, said he tried to take aim
at the bulldozer driver but could not see the target.
"I saw him coming like a madman, driving into cars. I ran towards the
tractor but was unable to get in front of it. People shouted at me to
kill him, but I couldn't see him properly," he said.
Residents of the nearby ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood crowded the
pavements after the incident as medics treated dozens of injured in the
middle of the road.
A group of Yeshiva religious school students demanded revenge.
"I think the policeman shouldn't have killed him. He should have shot
him in the leg and then let the people take care of him -- by lynching
him," said 21-year-old Yossi R, who declined to give his full name.
Rescue services used trucks and a crane to extricate a flattened car
from under the bulldozer.
Dozens of ambulances and police vehicles were lined up near the scene of
the attack, unable to get through because of the destruction sewn along
the road.
The owner of a Jaffa Road pharmacy who witnessed the incident said
Israel should respond with force and call a halt to peace talks with
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
"It's time we spoke their language of blood. Who will we make peace
with?" he asked, adding: "There is no connection between them and peace."
Yaakov Cohen, a 53-year-old unemployed man, was equally furious.
"They don't care if they use a screwdriver, a bulldozer or a bomb," he
said. "All they want is to kill us."
A little-known group calling itself the Imad Mughnieh unit of the
Brigades of the Liberators of the Galilee claimed responsibility for the
deadly attack in a phone call to Agence France-Presse.
The same group claimed an attack in March on a Jewish seminary in
Jerusalem that killed eight people, which they said was revenge for the
killing of senior Lebanese Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh in Damascus.
The militia blamed Mughnieh's death on Israel and has vowed revenge.
Israel welcomed Mughnieh's death but denied any responsibility. -- AFP