In footage broadcast by Israeli television stations on Monday 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 on Sunday.

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 motorcyclist 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.

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