Israeli man jumps out of moving vehicle after Palestinian steals car in West Bank
Video of the incident shows parked vehicle — connected to trailer carrying dirt bikes — stolen as second car attempts to chase it down
An Israeli man jumped out of a moving car last week after it was stolen by a Palestinian during a brief stop in the West Bank town of Al-Auja near Jericho.
In dashboard camera footage of the Friday incident, a vehicle is seen stopped on the side of the street. While the driver is briefly out of the car, a man enters the driver’s seat and begins to drive away, while the owner attempts to stop the vehicle and while a passenger is still inside.
A second car, containing friends of the other passengers, begins to chase the vehicle, while calling the police. “Tom is with him in the car,” they can be heard shouting. One of the men tells police: “We’re in Al-Auja, they stole a car, and there’s apparently also someone kidnapped inside.”
At that moment, the passenger who was in the other vehicle when it was stolen appears on the side of the road. “No, never mind, the kidnapped guy is here,” they tell police, while asking the man why he had jumped out of the car.
According to a report by the Walla News site, the individual who had still been in the car began to fight with the man stealing the vehicle. The passenger reported that the car thief drove into the Palestinian village and threatened to kill him when they reached their destination. The passenger then jumped out of the vehicle, which had been reportedly traveling at 50 kilometer an hour (30 mph), and was reunited with his friends.
One of the people involved in the incident told Walla that they briefly stopped in Al-Auja after a day of riding dirt bikes in the surrounding areas.
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“We stopped in Al-Auja to buy a drink, the driver in the second car got out to check the air in one of the tires,” the man said. “Inside the car there was another one of the group. At that moment, an unknown thief entered the car, closed the door and stole the vehicle.”
According to the report, police were unable to locate the stolen vehicle or the dirt bikes that were attached to the back of the car.
