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Jul. 2, 2008
3 killed, 44 wounded in Jerusalem terror attack
Bulldozer driver shot dead after going on rampage in capital
Jpost. com staff and Jonny Hadi
At least four people were killed and 44 were wounded — one seriously, one moderately and 42 lightly — on Wednesday afternoon when a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem.
Police said that the driver plowed his vehicle into two public buses, toppling them over, and slammed into several cars.
A soldier on leave took the gun from an elite policeman at the scene and shot the terrorist dead. The soldier, Moshe Klessner, 18, is the brother-in-law of IDF officer David Shapira, who killed the terrorist in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack, Channel 2 reported.
Witnesses said the driver was killed after a struggle with two policemen. One of the elite policemen was lightly wounded, apparently by gunfire, indicating that the terrorist was armed.
Police said the incident was definitely a terror attack, emphasizing that the terrorist was carrying an Israeli identity card and was a resident of east Jerusalem.
The attack, at the junction of Jaffa Street and Rechov Sha’arei Yisreal, set off a panic in the area. Dozens of people ran through the streets to flee the scene of the attack and a car was still stuck under the bulldozer. Police said it was unclear how many people were in the trapped vehicle.
The bulldozer was apparently being used for construction work on the Jerusalem light rail project.
Asaf Shalev, who was near the scene of the attack, told the Jerusalem Post that he heard about "an accident‘ and ran to the area. He described how he saw a ’path of destruction‘ leading from the construction site and numerous policemen ’examining the bulldozer."
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Infrastructure, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai said urgent legislation must be passed to restrict the movement of east Jerusalem Arabs and destroy the homes of terrorists.
Mother saves baby, killed seconds later
By ABE SELIG, SHELLY PAZ, JENNA STARK, and JPost staff
Jul. 3, 2008 -- Seconds before being crushed to death by a bulldozer, 33-year-old Batsheva Unterman succeeded in unbuckling her 5-month-old baby from the car-seat and passing her out through the window to safety.
"Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother," Jeremy Aronson, the man who helped save the baby, told The Jerusalem Post quietly as he sat alone in the waiting room of Hadassah-University Hospital in Mount Scopus.
Unterman, who was a kindergarten teacher at Ganei Homat Shmuel, initially had difficulty conceiving a child and had undergone two years of fertility treatments, friends told the Post at her funeral late Wednesday night in the Givat Shaul cemetery.
"She was a unique person," said a parent of one of her students.
The director of her school in Har Homa, Ilan Kaminetsky, said they did yet know how to tell Unterman’s students that she had died.
Another victim in Wednesday’s terror attack was Elizabeth (Lilly) Goren-Friedman, 54. She was also killed when her car was crushed by the bulldozer.
Goren-Friedman was a mother of three who had survived a serious illness and was a teacher for the blind in Jerusalem. She died on the operating table in Shaare Tzedek Hospital and was buried late at night in the Givat Shaul cemetery, surrounded by hundreds of family, friends and students.
"You were a good friend and a good mother. You made sure we were all happy,‘ her son Issachar eulogized, adding, ’You have taught us that volunteering is part of a person’s life."
"A sinful murderer destroyed a brave life that was filled with your courage to fight back. In spite of the difficulties you encountered during your life, you overcame everything with a smile on your face," Goren-Friedman’s husband said during the eulogy.
Goren-Friedman was survived by two sons, Issachar and Tzvi, and a daughter, Yael.
The third fatality in the bulldozer attack was Jean Relevi, 68, a resident of the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem, and soon-to-be grandfather.
The eldest from a family of seven, Relevi lost his mother only months after he was born. He, his father, and his sister moved from Iran to India, where they lived for nine years before continuing on to Israel in 1949.
Reloy was survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son.
In Memoriam
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