TEL AVIV, Israel _A Palestinian truck driver plowed into a group of Israeli soldiers at a Jerusalem tourist promenade Sunday afternoon, killing four and injuring at least a dozen, in an attack that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed to the influence of Islamic State.
The driver was identified as Fadi al Qunbar, a resident of a nearby East Jerusalem neighborhood. He was killed when soldiers and a bystander opened fire. Scenes from a security camera showed a speeding truck running into a crowd of several dozen people who were standing next to a parked tourist bus, and then circling back in reverse toward the same group.
Netanyahu called it a "tragic and brutal terrorist attack'' and suggested that the driver had been motivated by Islamic State, which has not generally been active in Israel. He compared it to truck attacks in France and Germany for which Islamic State has taken responsibility.
"This is part of the same pattern, inspired by Islamic State, by ISIS, that we saw first in France, then in Germany, and now in Jerusalem," he said at the scene of the attack. "This is part of the same ongoing battle against this global scourge of the new terrorism."
The Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the attack but did not claim responsibility.
Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Qanou called it a "heroic" act and encouraged other Palestinians to do the same and "escalate the resistance," the Associated Press reported.
Netanyahu said security forces had sealed off the suspect's neighborhood, Jabel Mukaber, as they investigated the attack.
The attack came as violence had waned in recent months after a year of frequent bloodshed that claimed the lives of 40 Israelis and 229 Palestinians.
The country was on edge after an Israeli soldier was found guilty last week of manslaughter for the execution-style killing of a Palestinian assailant who had participated in the nonfatal stabbing of another soldier. Neither side was mollified by the verdict _ Palestinians called it a "farce," and many Israelis were outraged that the soldier was even tried for what they saw as a defensible act.
The truck attack occurred as hundreds of soldiers, some of them officer cadets, were arriving at a popular park lookout point near Government House, the United Nations headquarters in the city. Witnesses said they thought at first it was a traffic accident, but when Qunbar kept driving they realized it was an attack.
"Soldiers started to scream. It took a couple of seconds to realize it was an attack," said Lea Schrieber, a tour guide accompanying the soldiers. '"I saw a truck ride up from the road onto the sidewalk. Then soldiers began to shoot. Everyone was hysterical."
The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, and officials with the United Nations and the European Union all issued statements condemning the attack.
"There is nothing heroic in such actions," said Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East.
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(Mitnick is a special correspondent.)
