IDF investigating soldiers’ ‘hesitant’ response to terror attack

Head of the IDF’s officers’ training school finds “at least two” of his cadets shot at the terrorist who rammed his truck into a group of soldiers in East Jerusalem, amid reports that the troops hesitated to respond or failed to entirely.

Col. Yaniv Alaluf, who commands the officers’ training course, visited the scene of the attack in order to conduct a preliminary investigation into the truck-ramming, in which four soldiers were killed and more than a dozen were injured. The soldiers were noncombat cadets in Alaluf’s course, in Jerusalem as part of a cultural tour with the army.

A civilian tour guide who was with the soldiers and also shot at the terrorist said he felt the troops had “hesitated” during the attack and blamed the recent “Hebron shooting” case for their pause.

Alaluf’s initial findings show that at least two soldiers opened fire at the attacker “from a close distance,” the army says.

The IDF will continue to investigate the incident “in depth,” the army says in a statement.