The attack was a third in a series of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem involving a new tactic, using vehicles as weapons; the others were the 2 July 2008 Jerusalem bulldozer attack and a similar attack with a Backhoe loader on 22 July.[2] The Jerusalem Post has termed them "ramming terror attacks."[3] According to Stratfor, the American global intelligence firm, "while not thus far as deadly as suicide bombing", this tactic could prove more difficult to prevent. No single group has claimed responsibility for the incidents.[1]
Later that month, on 22 July 2008, Ghassan Abu Tir, from the Umm Tuba neighborhood of East Jerusalem, drove a front-loader into traffic on King David Street in West Jerusalem, slamming into a bus and passing cars. Sixteen people were injured.[1]
On 22 September 2008, the assailant, Qassem Mughrabi (alt. Qasim al-Mughabi), a 19-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem's Jabal Mukaber neighborhood, drove a black BMWsaloon into a group of civilians and off-duty soldiers standing on a Jerusalem street.[5][6] Nineteen people were injured.[7]
Mughrabi was shot dead at the scene[8] by off-duty soldier Lt. Elad Amar. Amar told Army Radio that the attacker "drove towards the soldiers at top speed, plowed onto the traffic island, ran over soldiers and civilians and then continued, ramming into a building. At that point I assessed that it was a terror attack and decided to neutralize the driver so that he wouldn't be able to reverse the car and continue the attack."[9]
The assailant
According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, Qassem Mughrabi was a member of Hamas.[10] Mughrabi's family denied that the event was a terror attack. Mahmoud Mughrabi, Qassem's father, said his son did not have a driving license and apparently lost control of the car. "My son was murdered, they killed him. He did not carry out a terrorist attack. This was a car accident." However, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities were convinced the attack was politically motivated. "We're 100 percent sure ... he deliberately drove into people," Rosenfeld said.[11]
A number of Israeli Members of Parliament called for the demolition of the home of the assailant, as a means of discouraging future attacks.[12]
^Background: Ramming terror attacks in recent years, by JPOST.COM STAFF, Yaakov Lappin, Etgar Lefkovits, 29 August 2011, Jerusalem Post [1]
^Martin, Patrick (15 July 2016). "Amid such chaos comes fears of emulation: With vehicles increasingly being used as weapons by lone-wolf killers, history suggests the threat of copy-cat attacks is very real". The Globe and Mail. ProQuest1803998593.
^Palestinian Car Rams Israelis, By Isabel Kershner, 22 September 2008, New York Times [2]
^22 September 2008, 15 wounded in terror attack at busy Jerusalem intersection, By Etgar Lefkovits, Shelly Paz, Jerusalem Post [3][dead link]
