JERUSALEM (AFP) — About a dozen Israeli soldiers were injured Monday by a Palestinian who rammed his car into them on a west Jerusalem street and was then shot and killed, police said.
Two of the injured were reported to be in serious condition, as police confirmed initial reports that all were Israeli soldiers.
The incident took place near Tzahal Square, near the walls of Old Jerusalem and Jaffa Gate.
Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco told journalists the perpetrator was a Palestinian from east Jerusalem, but gave no further details about his identity or background.
"He turned his car towards a group of soldiers who were at an intersection," Franco said. "The car then hit a wall, and a soldier shot and killed the terrorist."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the home of the Palestinian had to be "destroyed as soon as possible" in order to dissuade others from carrying out similar acts.
Exactly two months earlier, on July 22, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli security forces after he injured 16 people when he turned an earth mover on passers-by and vehicles in Jerusalem.
That incident mimicked one 10 days earlier in which another Palestinian, also in an earth mover, killed three Israelis and injured more than 45 in the heart of Jerusalem before he himself was killed.
On March 6, eight Israeli students were shot and killed by a Palestinian who too was slain at the scene.
In each of those three instances, the perpetrators came from east Jerusalem, and Barak called for their homes to be destroyed.
Monday's incident came at the end of a politically important day in Israel, with President Shimon Peres asking Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to form a new government, a day after scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert officially stepped down.
Livni, 50, a former Mossad spy who replaced Olmert as head of the centrist Kadima party in a leadership vote on Wednesday, is thus set to become Israel's second woman prime minister after Golda Meir, who served from 1969 to 1974.
Earlier on Monday, an Israeli soldier lost an eye and three Palestinians were hurt when a woman sprayed acid at the soldier at a checkpoint near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, the army said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
