An attack or an accident? These are the hypotheses around which the tragedy that took place in Tel Aviv two nights ago revolves. On the waterfront a crazed car ran over a group of tourists , one was killed: it is the Italian Alessandro Parini.
Driving the car was Yusef Abu Jaber, a 45-year-old Arab-Israeli, considered "unsuspected". Father of six children and already a grandfather, he lived in Kfar Kassem where everyone defines him as a mild person.
In the past, he had managed a toy shop, where Jewish customers came from Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In recent years he worked with his wife as a cleaner in a high school on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. There are videos on the web showing him having fun with the students. The hypothesis in Israel - also confirmed in Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad - is that he may have been very disturbed by the images of violence that took place in recent days at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. So far the Shin Bet (the internal security service) and the Israeli police - who also say they are certain that it is a bomber - have not found any trace of a particular political or religious commitment.
In one of the videos, a few moments before being killed by a police officer, the man seems to be shouting: "Allah Akbar", God is great. But they would still be last words of faith, and not necessarily a political manifesto.
His older brother Omar Abu Jaber, who does not believe in the attack, claims that Yusef may have fallen asleep while driving. He explained to the Ynet site that in the previous four days Yusef had not slept because he had participated in mourning rites for the death of a close relative. According to Omar, the video ( HERE THE IMAGES ) which captured the run of his car after crashing at high speed on a cycle lane shows "attempts to minimize the impact". Today, even the police confirm that the man did not fire any shots.
Inside the car - according to the military radio - a toy weapon was found, broken into several pieces. Before filing the case definitively as a "terrorist attack", according to military radio, the police still want to examine the condition of the car and check whether there has been a technical fault. Then he will return the body to the family for the funeral.
Abu Kabir's institute of forensic medicine has instead denied that a bullet was found in the leg of the killed Italian. The autopsy has not yet been carried out and there is some doubt that it really takes place.
(Unioneonline/ss)