A Palestinian bulldozer driver went on a rampage along one of West Jerusalem's main traffic thoroughfares Wednesday, leaving a trail of destruction as he killed at least three Israelis and injured 40, before being shot dead by police, reported dpa.
Witnesses and police said the driver had left a nearby construction site, then drove against traffic onto Jerusalem's central Yaffa street, where he began ploughing into and smashing the mechanical shovel into passing vehicles.
He hit about eight cars, a cab and two buses, completely crushing at least two of the private cars and pushing over one of the passenger buses, while the second bus managed to swerve out of the tractor's path, escaping with only minor damage.
Several policemen jumped onto the heavy-duty Caterpillar and struggled with the driver, but they initially failed to overpower him. A policeman and an armed civilian passing by opened fire, killing him.
By that time, however, he had already worked through more than 500 metres of the central Jerusalem street. In an initial response, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office called it a "murderous terrorist attack."
Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franko said the driver was a Palestinian from East Jerusalem with a criminal record.
One witness said he saw a woman trapped in her vehicle with no chance of escaping as the driver repeatedly rammed the shovel into her windshield. By the time the witness had managed to reach her car she was gasping her last breaths.
But a fire department official said a baby was found alive outside the car, adding the toddler had either been tossed out by the impact of the collision, or the mother must have pushed him out while she was under attack in order to save him.
The other two fatalities were another woman and a man.
Some 35 passengers had been on the Number 13 city bus which was overturned. The bus driver and several of his passengers were among the injured. The bus, lying on its side, was completely smashed on the inside, with personal belongings, including groceries, newspapers and a stroller, lying scattered around, a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter at the scene said.
Eli Mizrahi, the policeman who fired the fatal shots, told reporters the driver was "in a frenzy," barrelling down the road, his hands tight on the steering wheel. The policeman said he had climbed onto the bulldozer and fired two shots, after a civilian who was carrying a gun had fired at the Palestinian as well.
A shadowy group calling itself the Imad Mughniyah Brigades of Free Galilee claimed responsibility in phonecalls to local Palestinian news agencies. The same group however has made several false claims of responsibility in the past.
Mughniyah, a senior leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, was assassinated in Damascus in February, and the radical Shiite movement had blamed Israel and vowed revenge.
Police described the perpetrator as a "lone" attacker, who had been working on a housing construction site around the corner of the scene and was married with children.
A large Israeli police force later entered Sur Baher, an East Jerusalem neighbourhood on the city's southern outskirts, and began searching the house of a 30-year-old Palestinian, Hussam Dwayat, identified as the perpetrator, local residents told dpa.
The last Palestinian attack in Jerusalem took place on March 6, when another East Jerusalem resident burst into a religious school or yeshiva in West Jerusalem, opened fire and killed eight students, ending four years of calm in the city.
Jerusalem had in the earlier years of the current Palestinian Intifada uprising against Israel been the site of numerous suicide bombings and shooting sprees.
But the Intifada had during the last few years lost its intensity, especially as regards attacks from the West Bank, where the Ramallah- based administration of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has also over the past months revived peace negotiations with Israel.
The uprising has instead continued mainly in the form of near- daily rocket and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip, where a shaky truce took hold only two weeks ago.
Israel has credited its controversial security barrier as the main cause for the reduction in attacks launched from the West Bank. But Wednesday's attack and the yeshiva shooting in March, both committed by Palestinians from East Jerusalem, have sparked concern of a new trend.
Israel's security barrier snakes around East Jerusalem and cuts it off from the rest of the West Bank, because building the wall on the border between the eastern and western sections would have meant a de-facto division of the city.
As a result, Israel has no control over the entry of East Jeruslam residents into the Jewish, eastern section of the city.
Some Israeli lawmakers have demanded the government strip East Jerusalem residents who carry out attacks off their Israeli citizenship and their social security benefits.
Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai, of the ultra- Orthodox Shas party, also demanded that if it became clear Wednesday's attacker had Israeli citizenship, Israel should change the law to enable it to demolish his family's East Jerusalem home.