A Palestinian has rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on December 8, killing four of them in the attack. According to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the attack had likely been inspired by the Islamic State. It has turned out to be the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and the attack was believed to be targeted at the officer cadets as they had disembarked from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade, which has a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

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The military has informed that a female officer and three officer cadets had been killed and 17 others were injured in this attack. Police said that three of the dead were women. Police has identified the truck driver as a Palestinian from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and said that he had been shot dead. His uncle, Abu Ali, named him as Fadi Ahmad Hamdan Qunbor, 28 years old, a father of four from the Jabel Mukabar neighbourhood.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld has said that nine Jabel Mukabar residents, including five members of the attacker’s family, had been arrested on suspicion of aiding the attacker.

Netanyahu has visited the scene and convened his security Cabinet, a forum of senior ministers, to discuss Israel’s response. He has said that the security forces had been controlling access in and out of the neighbourhood. The prime minister said, “We know the identity of the attacker. According to all the signs he is a supporter of Islamic State” .

According to a government source the ministers had called for the demolition of the attacker’s home and for his body not to be returned to the family for burial. It was also decided to detain without trial persons, expressing sympathy for Islamic State. Ned Price , National Security Council spokesman has stated expressing condolences for the victims that The United States had condemned the attack “in the strongest terms” and offered to help Israel work to determine who had been there behind the attack, .

Roni Alsheich, the national police chief, told reporters that he could not rule out that the driver had been motivated by a truck-ramming attack in a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month. Alsheich also added that “It is difficult to get into the head of every individual to determine what prompted him, but there is no doubt that these things do have an effect” .

By Prakriti Neogi