UPDATED: 5:50pm PST 07/02/2008.

May G-d have mercy on those injured and murdered today, and their families.

Appropriate Psalms to say at times like this are
Pslams 142 - (we must put our faith in Hashem in times of trouble)
Psalms 130 - (Hashem, please, have mercy on us and hear our cries)
Psalms 83 - (Hashem, please do not let the evil dominate Your people. Smash those who hate You).

Video from Tamar Yonah’s blog:

Update on Israeli TV Commentary:

1. Smiling officer?
The reason the officer at the beginning of the live footage is smiling with his pistol is that they  thought they had shot the terrorist and wounded him.  Then suddenly the terrorist continued his rampage, which is the footage you see in the video.

2. Pedestrian almost run over
Half way through this video you see a red circle on the screen. There is an Israeli motorist who rolled out of the way of the terrorist’s wheels literally inches before being crushed to death.

3. Arab Israeli citizens
The commentator discusses that “the security level around Israel is on high alert because any terror attack always increase the motivation of other would-be terrorists.” She notes that this is the second Israeli Arab who has turned terrorist on the Israeli population.

I would add that the fear is that these Arab Israelis, unlike the Palestinians I dealt with at checkpoints, have blue ID cards just like every other Israeli citizen. The ID cards allow them access to anywhere in Israel. Essentially the ID card means that they aren’t Palestinian, and therefore not a threat.

The Israeli government assumes that these Arabs are more loyal to the state of Israel than to Hamas, Hezbullah, Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Iran, or anyone else.

The young man you see shooting the terrorist is the brother in-law of the young man who stopped the Mercaz HaRav terrorist (although the commentator does not note that).

Both terrorists had Israeli ID permits since they live in Eastern Jerusalem.
Both terrorists were stopped by armed, religious Israeli civilians¹

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(Source: Jpost.com)
Three people were killed and 66 were wounded - one moderately and the rest lightly - on Wednesday afternoon when a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem.

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

The attack, at the junction of Jaffa Road and Sarei Yisrael St., set off a panic in the area and left a large swath of damage in the heart of the capital. Traffic was halted, and hundreds of people fled through the streets in panic as medics treated the wounded.

A car was dragged several meters by the bulldozer before being crushed under the vehicle. A baby was pulled out by a passerby before the vehicle was crushed, with the child’s mother still inside

“People started screaming ‘he is running us over, he is running us over,’” recounted traffic policewoman Elinor Nahum, 22, who was the first to react, firing at the bulldozer and apparently hitting the terrorist. Another policeman then climbed onto the vehicle and was lightly wounded in a struggle with the attacker.

Finally, an off-duty soldier took a gun from a security guard at the scene and shot the terrorist, who cried “Allah Akhbar” (God is great) before being killed. The soldier, Moshe Plesser, was assisted in neutralizing the attacker by Eli Mizrahi, a member of police’s elite Yasam anti-terror unit.

Plesser, 18, is the brother-in-law of IDF officer David Shapira, who killed the terrorist in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack on March 6.

Tags: Events in Israel, israel, jerusalem, terror attack, terrorists