Bulldozer terror rampage kills 3 in Jerusalem

Moshe Klessner, 18, shoots bulldozer terrorist in image from Haaretz.com video

JERUSALEM – In a terrorist attack today, three Israelis were murdered and dozens more wounded when a Palestinian Arab deliberately plowed a bulldozer into pedestrians and drivers in one of Jerusalem's most popular streets.

The terrorist was finally halted by an off-duty teenage Israeli soldier who grabbed the gun of a policeman.

No terrorist group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but a senior terror leader in the West Bank told WND his organization – a major Palestinian terror group – received several calls from Lebanon claiming credit on behalf of groups linked to Hezbollah.

The senior terrorist said a group calling itself the Freedom Brigades of the Galilee took responsibility for the attack. The same group, identified as an Israeli Arab organization that says it works for Hezbollah, also originally claimed credit for a shooting massacre in a Jerusalem yeshiva in March that left eight students dead.

The Freedom Brigades claimed in calls to the terrorist group it took responsibility for the attack to avenge the assassination in Syria last February of arch-Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who topped Israel's most wanted list and was responsible for infamous deadly attacks against the U.S. and Israel, including involvement in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon.

In today's rampage, Jabr Duwait, a 30-year-old Palestinian Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem, drove a bulldozer against traffic on Jerusalem's Jaffa Street and plowed into several cars and pedestrians. Duwait, who has a criminal record, also overturned a bus filled with passengers and plowed into a second bus.

He was then shot dead by Moshe Klessner, 18, an off-duty soldier who climbed onto the bulldozer.

In shocking footage of the attack obtained by Israel's Haaretz newspaper , Klessner can be seen climbing to the cab of the bulldozer and then shooting the terrorist several times in the head.

A policewoman was the first to react, shooting at the bulldozer but not hitting the target. Then Klessner reportedly grabbed the gun of an elite policeman, jumped onto the bulldozer and shot the terrorist at almost point-blank range.

Heroism apparently runs close to Klessner. His brother-in-law, a civilian and former soldier, was the man who finally killed the terrorist gunman during March's yeshiva massacre in Jerusalem, running into the school while other police officers refused to engage the terrorist during the gunman's rampage.

Three people reportedly were killed in today's attack, and 57 others injured, including at least one seriously.

According to an initial investigation, Duwait drove the bulldozer from a construction project at which he was employed near Jaffa Street.

His rampage sent pedestrians and bus passengers fleeing the scene.

"I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver's seat," Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student, told the Jerusalem Post.

Sixteen-year-old Eyal Lang Ben-Hur told the Post he was in a bus when the driver yelled out, "Get out of the vehicle! Everyone out!" People fled in a panic, he said, and the bus was hit an instant later.

Zion Shetreet, who witnessed the attack, told Israel's Ynetnews the "tractor turned into the road very suddenly and started trampling over the cars standing in the stoplight."

This is something you only see in the movies," he said. "It was awful."

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