Thread by @IwriteOK

OK, so this video is going around under the Reuters headline “Palestinians stone Israeli car, which crashes”. This incident occurred near the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem. I wanted to see how much footage I can find of the event and provide a fuller picture of what happened.

This video has been going around as evidence of what really happened, and it is horrifying. We see an Israeli driver accelerate directly into a Palestinian, before being rushed by bystanders. But this clip does not show how the incident began.

https://twitter.com/khilzak/status/1391757292136275975?s=20

If you spend a little time digging, you’ll see this longer :30 second clip being posted, generally by Israelis claiming it shows a Jewish driver being attacked and “narrowly escaping”. However this video is incomplete too.

https://twitter.com/yiftahc/status/1391683391666499586?s=20

When we first see the car zoom into view its rear window has already been broken, and a handful of people are chasing it. We still do not see the inciting incident here. But from what we can observe the driver IS being pelted by rocks.

However, his driving is not purely defensive. At one point he backs out, away from the crowd, most of whom pull back in response. He then pulls forward again. Two members of the crowd move to confront him, while the man he will eventually hit backs away.

The driver than accelerates forward, sideswiping one man attacking his car and then brutally ramming someone who appeared to be fleeing. We can see in the first clip that the victim has his back turned when the motorist started to accelerate.

The post I found this video in claimed the driver “narrowly” escaped lynching. I don’t see evidence of that here. The vast majority of the crowd fled after the ramming. A half dozen or so people stayed to pelt the now stranded car with rocks.

Some individuals ran up close to the car to throw rocks. It was certainly an ugly situation but by the time the cop arrived only one person was standing near the car, and I saw no effort to pull people from the vehicle. They seemed to be trying to keep the driver pinned inside.

Of course, after all this we still do not know how this started. The initial ‘aggressor’ is not clear from either of these videos. I found another clip from a different angle posted by an editor from the Times of Israel.

https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1391694584355381250

It is just four seconds long. It opens with one Palestinian about to accost the vehicle. However, we can tell that something has happened prior to the opening of this video. The driver’s side door is open. People in the background appear to be taking cover.

At the end of this, the ultimate reason for the attack is very unclear. Other vehicles traveling on the same road are not being attacked. The driver may have been partly out of his vehicle when the incident began.

Doing what? I have no idea.

Whatever happened prior to the first rock (we see) being thrown at the car frightened bystanders enough that they were taking cover.

The nature of the clips I’ve seen leads me to believe there must be more extensive footage of the incident, but it is not yet apparent.