First exams revealed a laceration to the head; an autopsy followed shortly after.
First attempts at rebuilding after the Tel Aviv attack: A gunshot had struck Alessandro Parini in the leg.
LETTER FROM REHOVOT — The white Kia drives southward along the boulevards that separate the beach from the glistening towers. Then he makes a sharp turn to the right, heading toward the water; the asphalt continues, but it’s the course where tourists and Israeli Jews out for Easter walk on bikes and electric scooters. During the month of Ramadan, Muslim families break their daily fast with a meal called Iftar, which is traditionally eaten outdoors on the grass.
Not far away, the ancient walls of Jaffa rise in winding arcs, blocking the path of the car that has been transformed into lethal sheet metal and the dinner destination of Alessandro Parini and his other travellers. Security footage from a nearby building shows the car speeding up, running over pedestrians, and then flipping over after jumping onto a concrete block in the grass. Seven foreigners were injured, including the dead Roman lawyer, who was 35 years old. A rescuer who came on the scene of the incident in Tel Aviv and testified that he saw gunshot wounds, including to the head, was quoted in certain local newspapers.
Since initial reports on social media indicated that a vehicle-borne terrorist attack had taken place on a Friday night and that civilians had been subjected to gunfire. After hearing the automobile drive by and the subsequent gunfire, we dispersed. A buddy who had been staying with Alessandro said yesterday to the Ansa agency, “When we walked back, we saw Alessandro laying on the ground in blood.”
A plainclothes officer and a city guard can be heard firing shots; they encircled the driver as he emerged from the shattered windows and claim they killed him as he reached for what they thought was an automatic rifle but was only a toy. The bomber may have intentionally set off his device, according to investigators, as reported by the Haaretz Daily. The reconstruction does not yet allow us to determine when the agents began firing; it is possible that they did so much earlier in an effort to halt the homicidal race. Parini’s body had arrived that morning for an autopsy, but it has not yet been performed. The Israelis perform a CAT scan, a radiological imaging method, today to better understand the factors that led to mortality. Initial examinations revealed that the young man had a non-fatal bullet wound to the leg and a laceration to the head. This information was shared with Italian authorities.
A few hours after the attack, Yussef Abu Jabber’s home was searched and relatives were questioned by the Shin Bet, the Israeli secret service. He and his wife, both Israeli Arabs, raised six daughters while working as janitors at a high school in the Tel Aviv area. Twenty-five kilometres separate Kfar Qassim, near the Green Line, from the busiest hours in the Mediterranean metropolis. On the other side of the line are Palestinian villages in the West Bank. According to an interview published in Yedioth Ahronoth, the brother repeatedly stated that he “can’t believe it,” and that he is certain that the incident was an “accident” (because “he fell asleep at the wheel”). The Rome prosecutor’s office is looking into a possible terrorist act with the goal of killing people and injuring others (the other two Italians injured).
The wheels’ ruts in the grass are a stark reminder of the accident. Residents of the oldest city in Israel, which is also it’s most defiant, leave tokens of their affection here and light candles. Protests against the far-right government’s justice plan, which is unpopular for its lack of democracy, persist. There will be a moment of silence to remember victims like Alexander of the ongoing violence before the chants of anger.
