Police say driver got out of vehicle and tried to stab passersby before he was shot and wounded by security guard

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A Palestinian motorist rammed his vehicle into a group of people standing near a tram stop in Jerusalem on Friday, injuring at least five, including four security officials, Israeli police said. None were seriously injured.

The incident, which police said they were treating as a terrorist attack, happened near an Israeli border police station on a main road in East Jerusalem, the predominantly Arab side of the city.

After crashing his vehicle, the driver got out and attempted to stab passersby with a knife before he was shot and wounded by police from the nearby station, police said.

“The incident was apparently a deliberate attack,” a police spokeswomansaid. She said the driver had been taken to hospital in a serious condition.

The incident took place on the Jewish holiday of Purim, when the streets are busy with pedestrians.

Last October and November, there was a spate of similar attacks in which Palestinian drivers rammed their vehicles into people waiting at the city’s light-rail stops. Those attacks killed three people and wounded around a dozen.

Tensions flared in Jerusalem last year before and after the Gaza war, but the city has been relatively calm in recent months.

On Thursday, the Palestine Liberation Organisation agreed to suspend security coordination with Israel in the occupied West Bank, which officials are concerned could have a knock-on impact on security throughout the territory.

The Palestinians seek a state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war, and in Gaza, a strip of land on the Mediterranean coast that is separated from the West Bank.