Earthmover driver kills 3 in Jerusalem rampage

A Palestinian man driving a construction vehicle Wednesday went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem, crushing cars, overturning a bus and killing three people.

The attacker left a 300-yard trail of destruction before being stopped by an off-duty Israeli soldier, who climbed into the vehicle’s cab and shot him to death. The attack injured 36 people.

“Terrorists keep finding new ways to attack us,” Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski said.

Using the Caterpillar vehicle’s front-mounted shovel, the driver repeatedly rammed a bus full of panicked passengers until it flipped over.

One woman was killed instantly when the shovel pierced the windshield of her Toyota.

Radio reporter Yitzhak Noy witnessed part of the attack and said he briefly made eye contact with the driver. He was “a young, handsome man. He looked cold and focused,” Noy said.

Police later identified the assailant as Hussam Duwayaat, a 30-year-old father of two from Sour Baher, an Arab village on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem.

Security forces quickly descended on the family home and questioned several of his relatives but made no arrests.

Duwayaat normally drove the front loader as part of a project to install a commuter rail system in Jerusalem.

“He didn’t turn up for work today,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

But just before noon, Duwayaat apparently went to the construction site and commandeered the vehicle. Rosenfeld speculated that his ultimate target was a crowded open-air market a few hundred yards from where the Palestinian was killed.

The attack took place on Jaffa Road, one of downtown Jerusalem’s main east-west corridors. The light-rail construction has closed several lanes, which made it difficult for cars to escape the rampage and later hindered ambulances and rescue vehicles.

Attack survivor Miki Aronson was turning off Jaffa Road into a parking lot and thought the oncoming construction vehicle was signaling to let her pass.

“But then he just came at me. He kept coming at me, crushing over the car,” Aronson told Israeli radio. “He crushed it like a box. I have no idea how I am alive now.”

Rosenfeld said Duwayaat appeared to have acted alone, although several obscure Palestinian militant groups issued conflicting claims of responsibility.

The attack was the first in Jerusalem since early March, when a lone Palestinian gunman from East Jerusalem killed eight young religious students inside a yeshiva.

For some Israelis, the attack on a crowded city bus evoked memories of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, during which buses were the favored targets for suicide bombers. The ongoing construction of a massive concrete barrier cutting through the occupied West Bank has sharply reduced the number of attacks.

“The fence is the gate of life,” Lupolianski said. “It has proven itself without a doubt.”

But one of the glaring shortcomings of the wall is the presence of an estimated 200,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, many of whom work in mostly Jewish West Jerusalem and have free access to all parts of the city. Officials acknowledge that there’s no simple solution short of heavily militarizing the city.

“Jerusalem is a complex city, where Arabs and Jews have lived together for tens, even hundreds, of years,” Israeli Police Commissioner Dudi Cohen said. “The security and public reality is a complex one.”

Residents of Sour Baher described Duwayaat as an unassuming and apolitical family man. Several residents said they saw no signs that he would go on a rampage.

One neighbor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Duwayaat family had been warned by Israeli officials not to put up a traditional mourning tent to honor him. Many Israelis were enraged in March when the family of Alaa abu Dheim, the yeshiva attacker, erected a mourning tent that included the flag of the militant group Hamas.

After the yeshiva shooting, several government officials called for the destruction of the Abu Dheim family home. On Wednesday, Mayor Lupolianski called for similar treatment for Duwayaat’s home.

“Any house from which a terrorist came must be demolished, without a doubt,” he said.

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ashraf.khalil@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau and special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.