World Jul. 03, 2008 - 05:40AM JST ( 16 )

JERUSALEM —

A Palestinian killed three Israelis and wounded 45 others as he rammed a bulldozer into buses and cars in Jerusalem on Wednesday before being shot dead by Israeli police who branded it a terror attack.

National police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld described the rampage in the heart of the Holy City as a “terrorist” act by a 30-year-old man from occupied east Jerusalem who worked for an Israeli company at a nearby construction site.

Chaos erupted as the heavy vehicle barreled along the busy Jaffa Road, smashing into two crowded buses, using its shovel to overturn one of them and ramming other vehicles, reducing one car to a mangled wreck.

Police officers clambered onto the bulldozer and shot the man dead.

The attack was the first in Jerusalem since a Palestinian gunman killed eight Jewish students at a seminary in March.

Four people were killed, including the driver of the earthmover, and 45 others wounded, three of them seriously, said Yeroham Mendola, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency services.

He said two women were among the dead, Bat-Sheva Unterman, 33, and Elisabeth Goren Friedman, 55, while the third Israeli killed was a man, whose name was not given.

On Wednesday night, 23 people were still being treated in hospital.

Police Commissioner Dudi Cohen told reporters the attack appeared to be a “spontaneous incident” carried out by a father of two with a criminal past but no known links to armed groups.

He said police were examining whether the man had “received instructions” from others.

Police identified the attacker as Hussam Tarysir Dwayat, and questioned family and neighbors in the Arab community of Sur Baher where he lived.

A little-known group calling itself the Imad Mughnieh unit of the Brigades of the Liberators of the Galilee claimed responsibility.

The Palestinian movement Hamas which rules the besieged Gaza Strip called the attack “the natural result of continuing Israeli aggression and crimes against our people in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.”

Wire reports