Hamas driver slams minivan into pedestrians

Associated Press

JERUSALEM

A Hamas militant slammed a minivan into a crowd waiting for a train Wednesday in Jerusalem, killing one person and wounding 13. Hours later, the Israeli military said a Palestinian motorist drove into a group of soldiers in the West Bank, injuring three.

The incidents and a similar attack two weeks earlier raised concern that Israel could be facing a new type of threat. Police said they would put concrete barricades in front of train stations as a first step.

Police identified the van’s driver — who was killed by police — as Ibrahim al-Akari, a 38-year-old Palestinian. His wife said he was angered by a confrontation between police and Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa Mosque earlier in the day in which part of the shrine was damaged.

Hamas praised the van attack as a defense of the mosque, which is part of a complex in the city’s most sensitive and sacred site — the compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.