Two statements issued by the Israeli police last night revealed contradictions in the story about the alleged car-ramming in Tel Aviv, which resulted in the death of an Italian tourist and the injury of five others, in addition to the driver of the vehicle, who is from Kafr Qassem, an Arab town in Israel. According to what was reported by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Authority, Kan 11, the initial Israeli police statement claimed that a weapon was in the possession of the driver of the vehicle, while a second statement confirmed that what was alleged to be a weapon was not the case as preliminary investigation indicated that the driver was in possession of a plastic toy weapon. The police did not publish any picture of the weapon, which it initially claimed was in the driver’s possession, nor did the Shin Bet confirm that the background to the incident was nationalistic, which contradicts similar earlier incidents, and the latest statement by the Israeli police regarding what happened stated that the circumstances of the incident are being investigated by the Central Unit in the Tel Aviv Police Department and by the Shin Bet. According to Kan, the preliminary investigation stated that the vehicle which Yousef Abu Jaber was driving belonged to his wife and was not stolen, as most Israeli media claimed at the beginning. It also confirmed that what was alleged to be a real weapon was nothing but a plastic toy. The initial Israeli police statement said that a car traveling from north to south hit four people near Charles Keller Park in Tel Aviv and that a police officer who was at a nearby gas station heard a noise and noticed a car turned over while several people were lying on the ground. The policeman approached the car with inspectors from the Tel Aviv Municipality Police and noticed that the driver was trying to reach the weapon he had. The policeman and the inspectors neutralized the driver and killed him, according to the police, which did not publish any picture of the weapon it claimed to be in the driver’s possession. In a statement issued later, and contradicting its initial statement, the Israel police stated that the officer referred to accompanied by other security personnel spotted the driver trying to reach for a gun-like object he had on him, and then they neutralized him. The Israeli media rushed to confirm that the perpetrator of the alleged attack was a young man from Kafr Qassem due to the presence of his Israeli identity card in the vehicle he was driving. It later reported that the perpetrator was from the occupied West Bank and that he got the car, in which the identity card was, saying that the Israeli police are examining it. The official Israeli Broadcasting Authority claimed that the Tel Aviv incident was a double operation and included a run-over operation followed by a shooting, while the perpetrator was killed. The Israeli police also confirmed that a police officer rushed to the scene to help and noticed that the driver of the car tried to get out and brandished a weapon so he rushed to shoot and killed him. The Israeli Channel 12 said that the alleged attacker opened fire from his car window at passers-by, then his car overturned in the Charles Keller area, and as he tried to escape, the police killed him. Last week, the occupation police executed the doctor Mohammad al-Osaibi, 26, from the town of Hura in the Naqab, near Chains Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. The police claimed at the time that the event was not documented on camera because the police bodycams were not activated and that there were no cameras in that area, bearing in mind that there are cameras in the alley leading to Al-Aqsa Mosque through the Chain Gate. Referring to the police’s contradiction in their accounts, the former occupation police chief in Jerusalem, Yair Yitzhaki, stated at the time: “I do not believe that there are no surveillance cameras that documented the event at the entrances to Al-Aqsa. I myself installed cameras in the area when I was in charge.’
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency (WAFA)