Occupied Jerusalem: Police flooded flashpoint neighbourhoods of occupied Jerusalem on Thursday after clashes triggered when a Palestinian rammed his car into a crowd.
It was the second deadly incident involving a Palestinian driving a vehicle in three months and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order an immediate increase in the police presence across the Holy City.
The driver, 21-year-old Abdul Rahman Shaludi from occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, drove his car at high speed into a group of pedestrians, killing a three-month-old girl and injuring six other people.
He was shot by police as he tried to flee the scene and later died of his injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The incident triggered clashes between stone-throwing youths and police in several occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhoods which lasted late into the night.
Unrest has gripped the eastern part of the city on an almost daily basis for the past four months, and several Israeli commentators said the unrest was being fanned by recent seizures of homes in the area by Jewish colonists.
Overnight clashes took place in the districts of Silwan, Issawiya, the Shuafat refugee camp, Al Tur and Ras Al Amud - all flashpoints in east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.
Stones were also thrown at the light rail in Shuafat, which has repeatedly been a target for local anger in recent months.
During another incident in August, a Palestinian rammed a bus with an excavator, killing one Israeli and injuring five. Police shot the driver dead.
Family members said Shaludi had been recently released from prison where he served 14 months for disturbing the peace, a euphemism for participating in unrest.
They said he was a nephew of senior Hamas bombmaker Mohyi Al Din Sharif who was killed in 1998, but it was not clear whether Shaludi was actually a Hamas member.
Much of Palestinian anger over Jewish colonists in occupied east Jerusalem has focused on Silwan - a densely populated Arab neighbourhood on a steep hillside just south of the Old City.
The neighbourhood hit the headlines in the past month after colonists acquired another 35 apartments there, triggering outrage from the Palestinians and condemnation from Washington.
Several Israeli commentators said that settlement expansion in Silwan had enflamed a wave of Palestinian anger which was ignited in east Jerusalem in early July after the grisly murder of a local teenager by Jewish extremists.
“The Israeli establishment did its part in fanning the flames of the growing anarchy - Jews going to live in Silwan (and) forbidding Muslims from entering the Temple Mount (Haram Al Sharif) during Jewish holidays,” wrote Alex Fishman in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Fellow commentator Shimon Shiffer also singled out the developments in Silwan.
“The government must stop permitting private (Jewish colonisation) organisations from invading neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem,” he wrote in the same paper.
“If they continue to do this, it is reasonable to assume that the Palestinian reaction will escalate.”
