In the wake of two bulldozer terror attacks in Jerusalem in recent months, police opened fire at a Palestinian man who tried to escape on a tractor on Tuesday afternoon near Modi'in. The Palestinian man did not heed to the calls of the policemen asking him to stop, and tried to drive away on his tractor.
A tractor at work on Jerusalem's light rail system [illustrative]
Photo: Sarah Levin
The policeman apparently felt threatened when the man raised the tractor's bucket and fled from the scene, and shot at the escaping tractor's wheels.
Army Radio reported that the incident appeared to be criminal and not terror-related. The Palestinian, who was caught driving negligently, did not stop the tractor when instructed to do so, but rather tried to flee from the area while raising the construction vehicle's bucket.
From the initial investigation it appears that man was afraid of being arrested as he did not have the necessary legal documentation to work in Israel, and was trying to escape back into the West Bank.
In July, two terror attacks were carried out in Jerusalem using bulldozers. On July 3, a resident of east Jerusalem rammed a bulldozer into cars, buses and pedestrians on one of Jerusalem's busiest streets, killing three people and wounding 45 others - including a six-month-old baby girl - before being shot dead by security personnel.
On July 23, another Arab bulldozer driver from east Jerusalem rammed his construction vehicle into a city bus and several cars on a central thoroughfare, wounding 15 people before being shot dead by a Druse border police officer and a civilian passerby.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski had said following the attacks that "renewed thinking" was needed in employing Arab residents of east Jerusalem, since "every work tool has become a potential for an attack."
Etgar Lefkovits, Yaakov Katz and Abe Selig contributed to this report
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