The tour guide who accompanied the IDF cadets on their visit to Armon Hanatziv in Jerusalem Sunday afternoon told Army Radio that they hesitated to shoot at that truck as it was speeding in their direction. He attributed their fateful pause to last week’s manslaughter conviction of Sgt. Elor Azaria by a military panel of judges for his shooting of a subdued terrorist in hebron.
The tour guide spoke to Army Radio from the back of an ambulance, and sounded highly agitated. He said every IDF soldier has been keeping abreast of the Azaria trial and Thursday’s verdict affected them directly. “All they’re being told recently is – watch it,” he reiterated.
Moshe Aharon, a bus driver who was present at the scene of the attack told Army Radio: “A group of soldiers with their duffle bags were standing there, I just let them off the bus – when a truck came ramming into a group of the soldiers and ran over them. The soldiers shot at him and he ran over them a second time. He got to my bus, then switched to reverse and ran over them again.”
Four soldiers died and one was critically wounded in Sunday’s attack. A dozen more soldiers were wounded.
According to Channel 10 News, Arab passers by who witnessed the fatal attack stood and applauded.