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Recording of eyewitnesses' phone call to police bolsters assertion that ramming at Jaffa Gate was terror attack, contrary to police claims.
Police Honenu Jaffa Gate Haim Bleicher ramming attack
one of the injured in the hospital Honenu
Eyewitnesses confirmed the accounts of the victims of a vehicular attack at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem two weeks ago.
The witnesses were a newly married couple who were the first to report the attack to the police.
The police quickly classified the incident as a traffic accident even after hearing from the couple.
During their call to the police the couple expressed their alarm at the time of the attack. "This was a terrorist attack right here in Jerusalem, a ramming and a stabbing at the entrance to the Old City under Jaffa Gate. A stabbing. They ran at them with knives. They got out of the car. He went the other way and crushed him against the wall. They went after those two students, and I had no idea what to do."
The couple added: "He ran over him, pinned him to the wall, backed up over him, and they ran at them with knives. The two of them with knives ... I saw a car turn right and wildly knock a man into the fence, they attacked him. I saw a knife. They jumped on them."
According to the couple, the victims were clearly haredim. "Two haredim and two men dressed in black. The victims were haredim and the assailants were dressed in black, really dark. My wife said that she saw I knife. I saw them running and attacking them."
Later in the phone conversation, the couple directed the police cars to the location of the stabbing.
When asked to describe the vehicle involved in the attack, the husband said that he could not remember the color of the car. "The right bumper broke and fell off. I was just behind the vehicle that was driving. As I stood there, he just turned right wildly, struck them, and they left [the car]. I'm sure I saw two attacking two. My wife says she saw the knife."
The police refused the request of attorney Haim Bleicher of the Honenu organization to recognize the victim of the attack as a victim of terrorism. The police informed Bleicher that the "investigation of those involved in the incident did not raise suspicions of a terrorist attack but that it was a traffic accident. The investigation file was transferred for further processing to the traffic accident department."
However, the couple who reported the attack were not called upon to testify and went on their honeymoon with no idea that the police were not treating the incident as a deliberate attack. They agreed to testify after the Honenu organization reached out to them.
Bleicher said: "This is a very serious mishap in which a terrorist caught after a brutal terrorist attack is released a few hours later, while the police accept the version of the assailant and explain it to all the media, while the immediate and clear evidence speaks of deliberate acts."
"In this case, there is no logical explanation for the conduct of the police, the silencing of the attack and the severe injury to the wounded who were accused by the police officers of a fight. We hope that the police and theirs superiors will come to an immediate conclusion too examine the causes of the problem, and to examine a chain of additional cases in which suspicion of similar conduct arises," he said.