The terrorist who carried out Thursday's tractor attack in Jerusalem was identified as Mir'i Radeideh, 26, of the Beit Hanina neighborhood in east Jerusalem. A policeman and policewoman were lightly hurt in the attack.
Radeideh was married and a father of one. He was carrying a Palestinian ID.
Thursday evening, security forces detained some of the terrorist's family members and took them in for questioning. His relatives told Ynet that they believe the event was an accident. According to a family member, Radeideh was "a normal person who did not hold extremist views" and thus his relatives do not believe he intended to carry out a terror attack.
Terrorist's relatives (Photo: AP)
Meanwhile, following the attack, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel turned to the defense minister and attorney general, demanding that the process of razing terrorists' homes as a means of deterrence be accelerated. The Forum noted that three serious terror attacks were carried out in Jerusalem in the past year, but that the only measure adopted by authorities was to seal off part of the home of the terrorist behind the Mercaz Harav yeshiva attack.
Earlier, the police officers who foiled the terror attack recounted the incident.
"We got out of the squad car and moved towards the terrorist. We were about six yards away when I fired at the driver through the window," police volunteer Elad Ben-Nun said, as he described the dramatic moments of Thursday's tractor attack in Jerusalem.
"The driver keeled over to the left and we hurried to the other side of the tractor. I saw him try to get up. I fired several more rounds until he wasn't moving anymore," he said.
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| Jerusalem: Bulldozer plows into police vehicle; terrorist killed / Ronen Medzini |
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Tractor hammers into police squad car on Menachem Begin Boulevard in the capital; misses nearby bus. Two officers injured, attacker neutralized |
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Midday Thursday saw a tractor, driven by a man whose identity has yet to be ascertained, plow into a police car on the corner of Menachem Begin Boulevard and Golomb Street in Jerusalem.
Two police officers were lightly hurt in the attack and three school girls who witnessed it suffered shock. The terrorist was taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where he died of his wounds.
"We arrived at the scene by way of Golomb Street," Daniel Housliech, the police officer riding in the car with Ben-Nun, told Ynet. "We could see the tractor to our left. It was hammering the police car with its shovel and then it tried to flip it over.
"We pulled over and ran to the scene. This was clearly a terror attack and not the scene of an accident. I pulled my gun… and since I am somewhat of a marksman, I hit him immediately."
Housliech estimated he fired about 15 rounds at the driver. "The driver looked about 35 or 40 years-old and he never said a thing," he added.
By that time, two other police officers arrived at the scene. One of them, sporting an M-16 rifle, noticed the terrorist was still moving and fired three more rounds at him.
The entire event was witnessed by a busload of students attending the nearby Jerusalem Religious Arts School. Ora Zdaka, 16, told Ynet about the difficult moments: "We saw the tractor ram the police car. We thought it was an accident at first, but then we saw it flip the car over. We thought he was going to come after us next and everyone started screaming.
"Then we heard some shots. When we finally managed to get off the bus we started running because we thought that they were shooting at us. The rest is a little hazy… all I remember is being evacuated."
Ronen Medzini and Ali Waked contributed to the report
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