“First I moved his foot from the gas pedal – I don’t know bulldozers or how to turn them off,” Plesser recalled.
By World Israel News Staff
Moshe Plesser, an off-duty IDF soldier, recounted how he stopped a terrorist in 2008 who went on a rampage through the streets of Jerusalem with a bulldozer, smashing buses and cars and killing three people.
In a video produced by the Israel Defense Forces, Plesser described what happened that fateful day.
“I went out that morning to do some things. I went to donate blood in the city center. I was riding my bike, starting to return home, when I suddenly saw an overturned bus on the other side of the street. Nearby was a bulldozer,” Plesser said.
“For a second I thought it was an accident, and that the bulldozer driver was trying to help. I saw him go in reverse with the blade in the air, then come back and bring down the blade onto the bus. I immediately understood that this was a terror attack.”
Plesser recounted that he decided to ditch his bike and run up to a security guard who didn’t shoot the terrorist when he had the chance.
“I tried asking him for his weapon, he was startled – in the heat of the moment he apparently thought that I was also a terrorist – and he started to aim the weapon at me.”
According to Plesser, he didn’t have time to explain to the guard what his intentions were, so instead, he ran towards the bulldozer. When he saw that the bulldozer was stuck on a concrete barrier, Plesser made his move.
He jumped onto the bulldozer together with a nearby traffic police officer. The terrorist had fainted.
“First I moved his foot from the gas pedal – I don’t know bulldozers or how to turn them off,” Plesser recalled.
“At that stage, I didn’t have a weapon, I looked around to see what I could do. I looked down and saw a guy in jeans and a hat, Oron ben Shimon, I gave him a hand up – he seemed focused.”
When the terrorist regained consciousness, Plesser said that the man shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and put his foot back on the gas pedal. While ben Shimon was struggling with the terrorist, Plesser took his comrade’s pistol and shot the terrorist dead on the spot.
“I went outside with the pistol. There were already lots of security forces there so I raised my hand in the air so they would understand that I wasn’t the terrorist – I had no identifying sign,” he said.
Thanks to Plesser’s courage, the terrorist Hosam Tayseer Dawyyat was prevented from taking more innocent lives.
Plesser received an IDF medal for courage.