Israeli motorists drove around dead body on road

JERUSALEM, May 7 (Reuters) More than two dozen Israeli motorists manoeuvred around the dead body of a road accident victim lying in the middle of a busy intersection, failing to stop to help in an incident captured by a traffic camera.

In footage broadcast by Israeli television stations today and in a series of photographs on newspaper front pages, motorcyclist Moshe Yisraeli was seen trying to squeeze between two trucks at a junction on a highway near Tel Aviv yesterday.

He never made it. The camera captured his body lying near the centre of the four-way intersection, his motorcycle metres away on its side.

Some 30 cars and trucks slowed down and then carefully drove around the prone motorcylist in a stream of traffic that continued for nearly two minutes before a driver stopped his vehicle and approached the body.

An ambulance crew later pronounced Yisraeli, 63, dead at the scene.

Israelis have a reputation for rushing to the scene of accidents or Palestinian bombings to help victims, and the apparent apathy shown in Yisraeli's case touched off a public debate over whether Israeli society has become uncaring.

''It's hard for me to think that no one helped him. I prefer to believe that people were in shock and didn't understand what had happened,'' Yisraeli's daughter, Tali, told reporters.

REUTERS RS RK2136