A car bomb in a crowded neighborhood of Jerusalem was neutralized by police sappers late Wednesday, two hours after an alert municipal parking warden alerted police to a suspicious car, said reports.
Jerusalem police commander Mickey Levy told The Jerusalem Post that bomb experts identified the device linked to a cellular telephone inside the vehicle and blew it up safely.
A passer-by had spotted the car in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim and alerted police, who closed off the area, said the paper.
Shimon Roash, 37, a father of three, was doing his daily rounds when he got a message from his dispatcher that there was an illegally parked car in a taxi-only parking zone.
"I looked at the car, and I saw that it was parked in a strange way," Roash told The Jerusalem Post just hours after his actions “averted tragedy.”
Roash, who has worked for the municipality for six years, refused to be called a hero, stating instead that he was a "messenger of the Lord."
"The Lord did not just send me to the spot today, there was a certain reason behind it," he told the paper.
The car, which Roash said was parked in an unusual, "perpendicular" (at right angles to the pavement) manner, immediately aroused his suspicion.
It was the third such attack in the area in as many months, and the second bombing thwarted by an alert passer-by, said the paper.
Meanwhile, a four-year-old Palestinian boy died after the Israeli army refused to let him cross from the Gaza Strip into Egypt for urgent heart surgery, relatives and medical officials told AFP Wednesday.
But a spokesman for the Israeli military administration in the occupied territories categorically denied this version of the facts, accusing the Palestinians of "lies."
According to the relatives and medical officials, Abdel Fatah Asbakhi, from Khan Yunis, died at the Rafah crossing on Tuesday night after he was barred by troops despite the trip being coordinated with the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian health ministry.
"We went five times to the Rafah border crossing with authorization, but still we were not allowed to cross. My son died yesterday evening after another failed attempt to persuade the soldiers to allow us to cross," his father Jowhar told Al-Hayat al-Jadida newspaper.
Israel has imposed a blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip to varying degrees since the outbreak of deadly violence six months ago, restricting the movement of Palestinians – Albawaba.com
