Car attack ignites tensions

Israeli right-wing activists stand around a makeshift coffin at the tram stop where the Palestinian drove into people and then tried to hit them with an iron bar. Photo / AP

Accusations fly after Palestinian rams tram stop killing border policeman and injuring 13

An attack by a Palestinian driver who rammed his car into a crowd at a tram stop in East Jerusalem has raised tensions in the city to their highest level in recent years.

The driver, who killed a border policeman and wounded 13 other people, was shot dead by security forces after he left his car and tried to hit people with a metal rod, police said.

Jerusalem's Arab neighbourhoods have been simmering over a perceived Israeli threat to the al-Aqsa mosque, and the attack touched off a heated exchange of accusations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, blamed "incitement" by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, while Abdullah Abdullah, a Palestinian politician who supports Abbas, said Israeli policies were "a planned attack on the holy site of the Muslims" and had triggered "unfortunate reactions".

Last week, a Palestinian tried to assassinate an Israeli activist who had called for Jews to be allowed to pray in the mosque compound. Police had clashed with Palestinian youths at the site shortly before the attack.

Israeli authorities said five people were injured at the tram stop and that the driver kept going for another 460m, injuring more people as he smashed into cars. "He left his vehicle and attempted to hit people with a metal bar. He was shot and killed by border police at the scene," a police spokesman said.

"We're still working to find out if it was a planned attack or spontaneous," he added. The driver was identified as Ibrahim al-Aqari from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem.

The militant Hamas group applauded the attack. "We praise this heroic operation," a spokesman said. Al-Aqari's brother, Musa al-Aqari, spent 19 years in an Israeli jail for kidnapping and murdering a border policeman in 1992. He was released and expelled to Turkey as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Netanyahu, speaking at a memorial event for Yitzhak Rabin, the former Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1995, called the attack "a direct result of the incitement by Abu Mazen [an alternative name for Abbas] and his partners in Hamas".

He appeared to be referring to a condolence letter the Palestinian leader sent to the family of last week's would-be assassin. Abbas wrote that he had died defending Palestinian holy sites and was in heaven. Independent