The suspected terrorist gunman who killed 80 people and wounded scores of others during Bastille Day celebrations in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday seemed to have taken a page out of the Palestinian jihadist playbook of vehicular terrorism.
For several years now, Palestinian terrorists have deployed the deadly tactic of plowing vehicles into pedestrians and then attempting to continue their assaults with stabbings or shootings.
Only two days ago, a Palestinian man attempted a car-ramming attack against Israel Border Police officers near Jerusalem.
A week and a half ago, three IDF soldiers were lightly wounded in another Palestinian car-ramming incident.
Last month, a Palestinian woman lightly wounded two Israelis in a car-ramming attack.
Such vehicular attacks and attempted attacks have become almost a routine throughout the most recent so-called Palestinian wave of terror targeting Israelis for over a year now.
Moreover, Palestinians have been utilizing the bloody tactic for at least eight years, with assailants at time using heavy vehicles such as tractors.
One attack that mirrors Thursday’s carnage in Nice was a December 2015 car-ramming in which a Palestinian plowed his vehicle into a large group of people at the entrance to Jerusalem, wounding fourteen, including an infant. The terrorist, in that case, was shot and killed and an axe was discovered in his car, meaning he likely intended to exit the vehicle and continue his onslaught.
As far back as July 2008, a Palestinian terrorist driving a large construction vehicle plowed into cars and pedestrians in central Jerusalem, killing three people and wounding more than 40.
Three weeks later, a Palestinian tractor driver rammed into an Israeli public bus and five cars, wounding 15 people.
Two months later, a Palestinian from eastern Jerusalem deliberately drove his BMW into a crowd in Jerusalem near the Old City, wounding 17.
In August 2014, a Palestinian drove a tractor into a bus in central Jerusalem, wounding six victims.
Reuters described the scene of the Nice attack on Thursday:
The truck careered for hundreds of meters along the front facing the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels), slamming into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the beach toward the grand, century-old Hotel Negresco.
“It’s a scene of horror,” member of parliament Eric Ciotti told France Info radio, saying the truck “mowed down several hundred people.” Jacques, who runs Le Queenie restaurant on the seafront, told the station: “People went down like ninepins.”
Bystander Franck Sidoli, who was visibly shocked, said: “I saw people go down.”
“Then the truck stopped, we were just five meters away. A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.
Nice-Matin posted photographs of the truck, its windshield starred by a score of bullets and its radiator grille destroyed.
The Daily Mail reported a “huge cache of guns, grenades and ‘larger weapons’ were later found inside the lorry.” The newspaper cited witnesses saying after plowing through the crowd, the gunman jumped out of the truck and opened fire before being shot dead near the scene.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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