Driver's mom: My son doesn't kill Jews

The family of a Kfar Kassem resident strongly denies his involvement in a terror attack in Tel Aviv on Sunday. "He was probably tired," a relative told Ynet.

The truck driver, who ran over some 15 vehicles and caused the death of one person and injured 17 others, is currently being questioned by police.

During questioning, the driver told police his tire had exploded causing him to lose control of the vehicle. Meanwhile all of the eyewitnesses on location are certain it was a terror attack.

"He had murder in his eyes," claimed the driver of a bus hit by the truck.

"I was driving on the Lod road and saw from a distance a truck running over cars from all directions. I saw the truck approaching me and decided to turn right. I immediately realized it was a terror attack because of Nakba Day."

Other witnesses said the truck driver got out of the truck and tried to assault a woman with a traffic light that had collapsed.  

Relatives of truck driver (Photo: Panet website)

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch addressed the attack in Tel Aviv saying: "The situation is under investigation. The young man is being questioned and police are still checking whether it was an accident or a terror attack."

He added that the suspect has "no nationalistic background."

However, the driver's relatives argue he had no malicious intent. They described an ambitious young man who was the only breadwinner in his family after his father became ill.

'My son is not a terrorist'

"My son doesn't kill Jews," his mother insisted. "I can't wait to talk to him already, hear what happened and how he's feeling. I'm asking the Israeli government to support him and prove to everyone that our son has nothing to do with the attack, and that it’s just the cause of a regular accident.

"My son is the breadwinner of the family. He built our house, bought a car. He has a lot of ambitions in life. He doesn't even know how to curse and has always been kind to anyone he met." 

"Everything that's happened to him is due to his tire exploding. That's why he lost control of the steering wheel," she added. 

"My son left for work around 7:30 am on Sunday morning. He has always driven carefully and doesn't go crazy on the road. Everybody in the village knows him. Everyone knows he doesn't run wild. I don't accept that people call my son a 'terrorist'," she added.

"Our son isn't a terrorist. Everything that's being said and all of the allegations have no basis," a relative told Ynet. "There's no way our son would do something like this. He's a well respected man who's built his future to become successful."

The relative added that the suspect "has no connections to organizations like Hamas or Fatah. He's not involved in politics at all. This accident has nothing to do with Nakba Day. We believe it happened because he was probably tired or something."

Knesset Member Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsur, a resident of Kfar Kassem, told Ynet: "The driver wouldn't have gotten into an accident on purpose. He just won the bid to excavate in Jaffa a few weeks ago, and he was very happy about it. I don't believe he would have opted to destroy everything he's built in the past few years. I visited the family and they're very surprised from this whole thing. They are still shocked."

Omri Efraim, Yoav Zitun and Roi Mandel contributed to this report

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