This is the horrifying moment a Palestinian man rams a truck into Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four and injuring up to 15 others.</s>One of the four Israeli soldiers killed this weekend when a Palestinian man rammed a truck into a crowd was a U.S. citizen, officials say.

Erez Orbach, 20, also had Israeli citizenship, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Israel told ABC News.

The other three soldiers have been identified as Yael Yekutiel, 20, Shir Hajaj, 22, and Shira Tzur, 20.

They were getting off a bus during a sightseeing tour Sunday when the truck hopped the curb and crashed into them, killing all four. Seventeen other people were injured.

The 28-year-old Palestinian attacker, Fadi Qunbar, was shot dead at the scene, officials said.

Israeli police today increased security in Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, particularly in the neighborhood where the alleged attacker lived.

The slain soldiers were expected to be laid to rest today.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Palestinian driver ploughs into soldiers gathered at a promenade overlooking the Old City, killing four and injuring a dozen

Four Israeli soldiers, three of them cadets, were killed in Jerusalem on Sunday when a Palestinian attacker driving a truck ploughed into them deliberately, injuring more than a dozen more.

The attack, the deadliest in months, comes after a lull in recent violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

It comes at a time of warnings about growing tensions, not least over Donald Trump’s highly controversial plan to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, and calls from some rightwing Israeli ministers to annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Police said the dead, three women and a man, were all in their 20s. Among the wounded, three were described as in a serious condition.

The attack took place as a large group of Israeli soldiers visited a scenic outlook overlooking modern Jerusalem and the Old City, a few blocks from the current US consulate.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “We in Jerusalem have just experienced an unprovoked terrorist attack, a murderous attack that claimed the lives of four young Israelis and wounded others. This is part of the same pattern inspired by Islamic State, by Isis, that we saw first in France, then in Germany and now in Jerusalem.”

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Palestinians with no known links to Isis have carried out ramming attacks in the past. Palestinian media identified the attacker as Fadi al-Qanbar, a married man in his 20s, who had reportedly previously served time in an Israeli prison.

Israeli police said the driver was from Jabel Mukaber, an area of Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem not far from the scene of the attack. Some media reports suggested Israeli licence plates on the vehicle meant it had been stolen.

Israel News Online (@IsraelNewsOrg) Arab #terrorist truck attack, #Jerusalem. 3 IDF dead, 1 IDF critical, 6 serious, 15 light. Soldiers from officers course from Gedud Erez. pic.twitter.com/VOqU2T7k2M

The driver was shot dead by other soldiers and a tour guide with the group that was hit as the driver reversed back towards the dead and injured.

Graphic security camera footage shot from a distance showed the truck racing towards a group of soldiers standing by their bus and then driving through the group, scattering bodies. After a gap of a few seconds the truck is seen reversing into them again.

“In a fraction of a second during which I was speaking with one of the officers, I saw the truck ploughing into us,” the guide, Eitan Rod, told Israel Army Radio.

“After a few rolls on the grass I saw the truck start to reverse and then I already understood that this was not an accident. I felt that my pistol was still on me, so I ran up to him and started emptying my clip. He went in reverse and again drove over the injured.”

As emergency workers removed the bodies from the scene, dozens of other young soldiers, some visibly shaken, were gathered on a park terrace where officers, paramedics and a military rabbi comforted them.

Leah Schreiber, a tour guide accompanying another group of soldiers, witnessed the attack.

“I was with a group of about 10 soldiers training to be commanders when I heard shouting,” she said. “I was explaining about the view of Jerusalem.

“I heard shouting and then shooting. I looked behind and saw the truck had driven on to the sidewalk hitting the soldiers.

“It took a few seconds to understand what was happening. Some soldiers had been told to hide in case of a second attack, while others were shooting the chauffeur.”

A security guard identified only as A told Channel 10: “In a split second I looked to my left and saw what I can only describe as a speeding truck which sent me flying.

“It was a miracle that my pistol stayed on me. I shot at a tyre, but realised there was no point as he had many wheels, so I ran in front of the cabin and at an angle I shot at him and emptied my magazine. When I finished shooting, some of the officer cadets also took aim and also started firing.”

Landy Sharona, a paramedic who attended to the injured, told the Jerusalem Post: “About 10 people were lying on the ground near the street. Some of them were trapped under the truck.”

Other eyewitnesses who arrived quickly on the scene described coming across one body under the truck’s wheels and two others beside it while the driver was slumped dead behind a windscreen hit by a dozen bullets.

Israel’s chief of police, Roni Alsheich, described the incident as a terror attack. “You don’t need more than two to three seconds to find a terrorist target. The soldiers at the scene reacted immediately and killed the attacker,” he said.

The incident is the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months. It happened just after the cadets had disembarked from a coach that had brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade, a grass-lined stone walkway with a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

Alsheich told reporters he could not rule out the driver of the truck having been motivated by a similar attackon a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month.

“It is certainly possible to be influenced by watching TV, but 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,” he said.

Rescue workers said about 15 wounded people lay on the street as ambulances raced to the scene. The Israeli military regularly takes soldiers on educational tours of Jerusalem, including the Armon Hanatziv vantage point.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has warned of serious consequences if Trump follows through on his place to move the US embassy from from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“You’d have an explosion, an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region,” he said in a recent interview with CBS.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completely since October 2015. Assaults over the past 15 months have killed at least 37 Israelis and two visiting US citizens.

At least 231 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the same period. Israel says at least 157 of them were assailants in lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel says one of the main causes of the violence has been incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians.</s>Brussels, Jan 9: The European Union (EU) has condemned the truck-ramming attack in Jerusalem which killed four Israeli soldiers and injured 15 others.

"The EU condemns the murder of these four young Israelis, as well as any praise or incitement for terrorist acts," a spokesperson of the European External Action Service (EEAS), or the EU's diplomatic service, said in a statement on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Israeli police investigates the scene of an attack in Jerusalem Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017. A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four people and wounding 15 others, Israeli police and rescue services said, in one of the deadliest attacks of a more than yearlong campaign of violence. Image courtesy PTI.

"There can be no justification for such a crime," the spokesperson said, "the EU will continue to work with those who seek peace and denounce those who pursue violence and terror."

Palestinian media identified the perpetrator as Fadi al-Qanbar from East Jerusalem's Jabel Mukaber neighbourhood.

Israel's police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the incident -- which took place in Armon Hanatziv, a popular promenade that overlooks East Jerusalem's Old City -- was a "terrorist attack," although the investigation has yet to be concluded.

On Saturday, the assailant drove his truck into pedestrians, killing four soldiers, three of them women, and wounding 15 more, Samri said.

The attack was one of the deadliest amidst a more than yearlong wave of violence. Last June, two gunmen killed four persons at a trendy recreation compound in Tel Aviv.</s>A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four people and injuring about 15 others in a deliberate attack, police and emergency services said.

Police identified the driver as a Palestinian from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and said he was shot dead. A dozen bullet holes pockmarked the windscreen.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and targeted officer cadets who were disembarking from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade, a stone-laden and grass-lined walkway with a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

Police said the dead, three women and one man, were all in their twenties, without identifying them further. Soldiers’ deaths are announced in Israel only after families are notified.

Roni Alsheich, the national police chief, told reporters he could not rule out that the Palestinian was motivated by a truck ramming attack in a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month.

“It is certainly possible to be influenced by watching TV but 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,” Alsheich told reporters.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completely since it began in October 2015.

Security camera footage showed the truck racing towards the soldiers, and then after a gap that apparently included scenes of carnage, reversing into them.

“In a split second I looked to my left and saw what I can only describe as a speeding truck which sent me flying,” a security guard, who was identified only as “A” told Channel 10.

“It was a miracle that my pistol stayed on me. I shot at a tyre but realised there was no point as he has many wheels, so I ran in front of the cabin and at an angle I shot at him and emptied my magazine. When I finished shooting, some of the officer cadets also took aim and also started firing.”

The footage showed many of the soldiers fleeing the scene as the attack took place, their rifles slung on their shoulders. Questions were already being raised in the Israeli media why more did not engage the attacker.

Rescue workers said about 15 wounded people were strewn on the street at the promenade as ambulances raced to the scene. The Israeli military regularly takes soldiers on educational tours of Jerusalem, including the Armon Hanatziv vantage point.

Channel 10 television said the soldiers’ tour guide also fired at the assailant.

As a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital but the world does not, the truck driver would carry an Israeli identity card and be able to move freely through all of the city.

Palestinian street assaults over the past 15 months have killed at least 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans.

At least 231 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip during that period. Israel says at least 157 of them were assailants in lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel says one of the main causes of the violence has been incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies that allegation, and says assailants have acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state in peace talks stalled since 2014.

“We bless this heroic operation resisting the Israeli occupation to force it to stop its crimes and violations against our people,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Reuters.</s>Israeli police have arrested nine people, including relatives of the Palestinian truck driver who rammed his vehicle into a crowd of Israeli soldiers at a Jerusalem tourist spot and killed four of them, officials said.

The five family members of Fadi Ahmad Hamdan al-Qunbar, 28, were arrested in a raid in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where he lived, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Qunbar killed three Israel Defense Forces cadets and an officer Sunday at the bustling Armon Hanatziv promenade in the Talpiot neighborhood before he was shot dead. Sixteen people were injured in the attack.

On Monday, Palestinians hurled rocks and incendiary devices at authorities as they placed concrete slabs to block entrances and check vehicles in the West Bank and Jerusalem.</s>Four Israeli soldiers were killed when they were run down by a truck in Jerusalem on Sunday in what police were treating as a deliberate attack, a medic at the scene told AFP.

Arie Jaffe, of the United Hatzalah emergency service, said the driver was also killed in the incident in west Jerusalem.

Palestinian security officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah said he was a Palestinian from the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, close to the scene.

Since October 2015, 247 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Police quoted rescue services as saying that 15 Israelis were injured, one seriously, in Sunday's ramming.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the victims were in a group of soldiers alighting from a bus at the promenade, which has a scenic view down onto the Old City.

The bus driver said they had been on a cultural tour of the city.

Rosenfeld said that suddenly the lorry driver "ran his vehicle into them. At this moment of time we have ruled out an accident."</s>A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four people and injuring about 15 others in a deliberate attack, police and emergency services said.

Police identified the driver as a Palestinian from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and said he was shot dead. A dozen bullet holes pockmarked the windscreen.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and targeted officer cadets who were disembarking from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade, a stone-laden and grass-lined walkway with a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

"It is a terrorist attack, a ramming attack," a police spokeswoman said.

Police said the dead, three women and one man, were all in their twenties, without identifying them further. Soldiers' deaths are announced in Israel only after families are notified.

Roni Alsheich, the national police chief, told reporters he could not rule out that the Palestinian was motivated by a truck ramming attack in a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month.

"It is certainly possible to be influenced by watching TV but 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," Alsheich told reporters.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completely since it began in October 2015.

Security camera footage showed the truck racing towards the soldiers, and then after a gap that apparently included scenes of carnage, reversing into them.

"In a split second I looked to my left and saw what I can only describe as a speeding truck which sent me flying," a security guard, who was identified only as "A" told Channel 10.

"It was a miracle that my pistol stayed on me. I shot at a tire but realized there was no point as he has many wheels, so I ran in front of the cabin and at an angle I shot at him and emptied my magazine. When I finished shooting, some of the officer cadets also took aim and also started firing."

The footage showed many of the soldiers fleeing the scene as the attack took place, their rifles slung on their shoulders. Questions were already being raised in the Israeli media why more did not engage the attacker.

Rescue workers said about 15 wounded people were strewn on the street at the promenade as ambulances raced to the scene. The Israeli military regularly takes soldiers on educational tours of Jerusalem, including the Armon Hanatziv vantage point.

Channel 10 television said the soldiers' tour guide also fired at the assailant.

As a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital but the world does not, the truck driver would carry an Israeli identity card and be able to move freely through all of the city.

Palestinian street assaults over the past 15 months have killed at least 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans.

At least 231 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip during that period. Israel says at least 157 of them were assailants in lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel says one of the main causes of the violence has been incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies that allegation, and says assailants have acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state in peace talks stalled since 2014.

"We bless this heroic operation resisting the Israeli occupation to force it to stop its crimes and violations against our people," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Reuters.</s>Brussels: The European Union (EU) has condemned the truck-ramming attack in Jerusalem which killed four Israeli soldiers and injured 15 others.

"The EU condemns the murder of these four young Israelis, as well as any praise or incitement for terrorist acts," a spokesperson of the European External Action Service (EEAS), or the EU's diplomatic service, said in a statement on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There can be no justification for such a crime," the spokesperson said, "the EU will continue to work with those who seek peace and denounce those who pursue violence and terror."

Palestinian media identified the perpetrator as Fadi al-Qanbar from East Jerusalem's Jabel Mukaber neighbourhood.

Israel's police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the incident -- which took place in Armon Hanatziv, a popular promenade that overlooks East Jerusalem's Old City -- was a "terrorist attack," although the investigation has yet to be concluded.

On Saturday, the assailant drove his truck into pedestrians, killing four soldiers, three of them women, and wounding 15 more, Samri said.

The attack was one of the deadliest amidst a more than yearlong wave of violence. Last June, two gunmen killed four persons at a trendy recreation compound in Tel Aviv.</s>A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four people and injuring about 15 others in a deliberate attack, police and emergency services said.

Police identified the driver as a Palestinian from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and said he was shot dead. A dozen bullet holes pockmarked the windscreen.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and targeted officer cadets who were disembarking from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade, a stone-laden and grass-lined walkway with a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

Police said the dead, three women and one man, were all in their twenties, without identifying them further. Soldiers’ deaths are announced in Israel only after families are notified.

Roni Alsheich, the national police chief, told reporters he could not rule out that the Palestinian was motivated by a truck ramming attack in a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month.

“It is certainly possible to be influenced by watching TV but 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,” Alsheich told reporters.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completely since it began in October 2015.

Security camera footage showed the truck racing towards the soldiers, and then after a gap that apparently included scenes of carnage, reversing into them.

“In a split second I looked to my left and saw what I can only describe as a speeding truck which sent me flying,” a security guard, who was identified only as “A” told Channel 10.

“It was a miracle that my pistol stayed on me. I shot at a tire but realized there was no point as he has many wheels, so I ran in front of the cabin and at an angle I shot at him and emptied my magazine. When I finished shooting, some of the officer cadets also took aim and also started firing.”

The footage showed many of the soldiers fleeing the scene as the attack took place, their rifles slung on their shoulders. Questions were already being raised in the Israeli media why more did not engage the attacker.

Rescue workers said about 15 wounded people were strewn on the street at the promenade as ambulances raced to the scene. The Israeli military regularly takes soldiers on educational tours of Jerusalem, including the Armon Hanatziv vantage point.

Channel 10 television said the soldiers’ tour guide also fired at the assailant.

As a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital but the world does not, the truck driver would carry an Israeli identity card and be able to move freely through all of the city.

Palestinian street assaults over the past 15 months have killed at least 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans.

At least 231 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip during that period. Israel says at least 157 of them were assailants in lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel says one of the main causes of the violence has been incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies that allegation, and says assailants have acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state in peace talks stalled since 2014.

“We bless this heroic operation resisting the Israeli occupation to force it to stop its crimes and violations against our people,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Reuters.
A truck rams into a group of Israeli soldiers in a deliberate attack in East Jerusalem, killing four and wounding 21. The perpetrator was previously convicted of terrorism and was jailed for 10 years.