'Terrorist bought soda and four cups, an hour before attack'

"He would come to my shop regularly," owner of the nut shop near the path of the bulldozer, tells 'Post'.

By ASAF SHALEV
Dwayat 224 88 (photo credit: AP)
Dwayat 224 88
(photo credit: AP)
Less than an hour before last Wednesday's bulldozer attack on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road, terrorist Husam Taysir Dwayat, 30, from Sur Bahir came to buy soda and asked for four plastic cups, a kiosk owner said on Tuesday. "He would come to my shop regularly," David Hudeda, owner of the Pitsusiyat Hugi nut shop near the path of the bulldozer, told The Jerusalem Post. "From his appearance and demeanor, there was no way to tell what he was planning." "We have been immunized to terrorist attacks; we learned how to clear the wreckage and return to normality," Hudeda said. "It was just like a car accident [in terms of how fast everything returned to normal]." Six days after the bulldozer attack that killed three people, the effects of the attack are definitely felt by Jaffa Road's shopkeepers. "An Arab bulldozer driver just gave me the finger!" a pedestrian complained to a policeman on Jaffa Road Tuesday. The man, who declined to be named, cited the gesture when telling officer Shai Azulai about the driver's suspicious activity at a light rail construction site. But Azulai quickly got the pedestrian to confess he had provoked the driver. The complainant had waved his finger at the driver suspecting that he, too, would use his bulldozer to commit a terrorist attack. Azulai and his partner were stationed to assist with construction-associated traffic, and although Azulai was not authorized to comment to the press he seemed aware of his duty to watch over the site of last week's attack. Neither the Jaffa Road construction site nor the Rehov Sarei Israel apartment complex construction site from which the deadly bulldozer started out last Wednesday had security guards on Tuesday. Other than a makeshift memorial of a few pieces of stone and three candles there was no physical sign that an attack had taken place. "Every tractor noise and my mind becomes worried; [any] towing or hauling noise and my heart drops," said Meir Nehamia, who also works at a store facing the scene of the attack. Most vendors didn't want to speak about their experiences during the attack. Some were obviously shaken but others said they were tired of the questions from people who come into their places of business. "It is natural that many people will come and ask us, 'What happened?' 'How are you doing now?'" Nehamia said. "Some ask out of curiosity and other out of concern for our well-being."