A Palestinian rammed a car into pedestrians in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a baby and injuring six other people before being shot and wounded in what Israeli police said was a “hit-and-run terror attack.”
It was the second such deadly incident in three months, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately order an increase in police presence across the city.
The driver, identified as Abed Abdelrahman Shaludeh, a Palestinian from Silwan in east Jerusalem, died early yesterday, the Shaarei Tzedek Hospital said.
Photo: AFP
The 21-year-old had been shot as he tried to flee the scene, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
The US condemned what it called a “terrorist” attack.
“We express our deepest condolences to the family of the baby, reportedly an American citizen, who was killed in this despicable attack,” US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. “We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”
During the early evening attack, the car was driven at a high speed into pedestrians near the Ammunition Hill tram stop on the border between west and occupied east Jerusalem.
Seven people were hurt, including a three-month-old girl, Haya Zissel Braun, who later died, Hadassah Hospital said. She was buried on Wednesday evening.
Samri described the incident as a “hit-and-run terror attack” — the second in the area in just under three months.
During an incident in August, a Palestinian man rammed a bus with an excavator, killing one Israeli and injuring five. Police shot the driver dead.
Witnesses of Wednesday’s attack said the car drove into the crowd at great speed.
“We saw a car coming from the north at full speed,” Eli Dayan said. “We realized something was going on. He missed us by a few centimeters.”
Video of the incident posted on YouTube showed a car driving at a high speed off the main road and down the pavement where people were standing as two trams passed each other.
Another clip shot on a cellphone showed the driver lying on the ground in a T-shirt and ripped jeans as a man pointed a gun at him. Aside from the baby, medics said that they treated six other people — one in serious condition, one moderately hurt and four with light injuries.
Samri said the suspect was from Silwan, a densely populated Arab neighborhood on a steep hillside just south of the Old City.
Family members said he had been recently released from an Israeli prison where he served 14 months for disturbing the peace. Silwan has been wracked by unrest in recent years, since Jewish hardliners took up residence in the area, triggering frequent clashes between stone-throwing residents and police.
The area returned to headlines in recent weeks after settlers acquired another 35 apartments there, triggering a furious reaction from both the Palestinians and the international community.
In the neighborhood, scores of police could be seen trying to enter the Shaludeh family home, as dozens of masked Palestinians hurled stones at them, police and residents said.
Four family members who went to visit Shaludeh in Shaarei Tzedek Hospital were arrested, a relative told reporters.
Clashes also erupted in other flashpoint districts in Arab east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognized by the international community.
Family members confirmed that Shaludeh was a nephew of senior Hamas bomb-maker Muhi al-Din Sharif, who was killed in the West Bank city of Ramallah in mysterious circumstances in 1998.
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