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Palestinian rams bulldozer into Israeli buses, 3 dead

A Palestinian driving an enormous construction vehicle went on a deadly rampage on a busy Jerusalem street yesterday, plowing into a string of cars, buses and pedestrians, killing at least three people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers.

The violence, the first major attack in Jerusalem since March, wreaked havoc and left a large swath of damage on Jaffa Road, a main thoroughfare in downtown Jerusalem. Traffic was halted, and hundreds of people fled through the streets in panic as medics treated the wounded.

Three Palestinian militant groups took responsibility for the attack, but the claims could not be independently verified and Israeli police referred to the attacker as a “terrorist” acting on his own. Israeli police said the man was a bulldozer operator who worked in the area for a local construction firm.

The attack took place in front of a building housing the offices of several media outlets. BBC footage captured the huge frontloader crushing a vehicle and an off-duty soldier shooting the perpetrator in the head several times at point-blank range as onlookers screamed.

A half-dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus also was overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.

Israel’s national rescue service confirmed three deaths.

Israeli TV said a woman driving a car in the frontloader’s path threw her baby girl out the window to save the child. The baby escaped unscathed, but the woman was injured when the frontloader plowed into her car, the report said.

“I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver’s seat,” said Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student.

Also see: Israel reopens four crossings, allows cement into Gaza
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