Israel Matzav

Breaking: Possible terror attack in Jerusalem?

Earlier this evening, I mentioned that I had been out of the house for about six hours. I had gone downtown to do some shopping, and to act as a teaching assistant for a course I took a few months ago. On the way home, nearly two hours ago, I noticed a massive car accident on Route 9 headed toward Ramot, where the road forks between the tunnel road to Motza on one side, and Route 443 and Begin Boulevard on the other side, before ending at the Ramot intersection heading toward either Ramot or the city (a T-intersection). The accident seemed to include several cars, police cars, a fire truck and one or two ambulances. The road on that side was backed up to Ramat Shlomo.

I am supposed to go to an engagement party tonight (vort), and on the way out, I checked the synagogue bulletin board to verify where the party is. When I walked into the synagogue and read the bulletin board, someone saw me and said "don't go - the road is backed up from an accident all the way to French Hill." I asked him what happened. I assumed that someone had gone down the wrong road, tried to back up and gotten into an accident. I was sure it would have been cleared by now. But he told a different story, which is as yet unconfirmed.

My friend told me that oil had been spilled all over the road and a number of cars and a bus had spun out of control. It's suspected that Arab terrorists covered the road with oil.

It's now nearly 11:00 here. I saw this accident at 9:00. It has not been reported on the news at 9:00 or at 10:00 and it's not being reported on Israel Radio's traffic center (*955), which usually would report this kind of accident even though it's within the city of Jerusalem.

No word on casualties either.

Hmmm.

UPDATE 11:07 PM

Nothing on the 11:00 pm news either.

Labels: Begin Boulevard, Jerusalem, Route 443, terror attacks

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:42 PM