Police and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) are increasingly confident that
the lethal
Tel Aviv truck rampage on Sunday, in which a 22-year-old Arab Israeli
driver collided with multiple vehicles and killed one man, was
deliberate.
A media ban preventing the publication of the driver's name
was lifted on Wednesday, and the suspect can now be named as Isa Islam, of Kfar
Qasim. The incident took place on 'Nakba day,' on which Palestinians mourn the
establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
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and what we saw in Tel Aviv, the indications are that it was carried out
deliberately," a police source told
The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
The
Israel Security Agency has been investigating Islam's motives, while police have reenacted the incident step by step.
Investigators believe their findings
contradict Islam's version of events, according to which a punctured tire caused
him to lose control of his vehicle.
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court
extended Islam's custody by eight days on Monday.
The suspect's mother,
who arrived at the court, told Channel 2 news on Monday, "You're only saying he
carried out a terror attack because he is an Arab. This was an accident. He
works with Israelis and Jews...my son is not like that."
The mother
accused one female eye witness who said she heard Islam shout "Allahu Akbar" of
"lying because she doesn't like Arabs. She is a liar. You can see on TV that
this was an accident. He lost control of the steering wheel. The tire exploded."
Eye witnesses who saw the truck collide into several vehicles before ploughing
into a bus in the oncoming lane outside of an elementary school told
The
Jerusalem Post on Sunday that the driver deliberately smashed into targets along
a long stretch of the busy road.
