JERUSALEM—A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding 17 others in one of the deadliest attacks of a more than yearlong campaign of violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the driver was a supporter of the ISIS terrorist group, and suggested the attack was inspired by similar assaults in Europe. Palestinians with no known links to ISIS have carried out vehicular assaults in the past.
“We know the identity of the attacker. According to all the signs, he was a supporter of the Islamic State,” Netanyahu said in a statement delivered at the attack site. “We know that there is a sequence of terror attacks. There definitely could be a connection between them, from France to Berlin and now Jerusalem.”
Security camera footage shown on Israeli TV channels showed the truck barreling at a high speed off the road and into the crowd of people in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. The truck can be seen backing up quickly before the driver is shot dead.
“There was no sense in that reverse,” Leah Schreiber, a witness, told reporters. “He drove backward to crush more people. That was really clear.”
While Israel has arrested several Palestinians accused of traveling to Syria to fight with ISIS, the group is not known to have a presence in Israel or the Palestinian areas. Israel has said two gunmen who carried out a deadly shooting in Tel Aviv last June were inspired by ISIS, but were not members.
The attacker came from the east Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, near the attack site. Police barred publication of his name.
Neighbors said he espoused an ultra-conservative version of Islam, known as Salafism, but that he did not have a known affiliation with any Palestinian political faction. Salafism is split into peaceful and violent streams, with the latter promoting ideas that are close to those of ISIS.
