Palestinian shot dead after tractor rampage

Inventing ways for attack
The assault was eerily reminiscent of an attack earlier this month, when another Palestinian from east Jerusalem plowed his front-end loader into a string of vehicles and pedestrians on another busy Jerusalem street about 3 miles away. Three people were killed in that attack and dozens of others were wounded before an off-duty soldier shot the assailant dead.

Tuesday's attack was carried out with the same type of front-end loader. A four-door sedan next to the vehicle had been struck from the rear and crashed into a utility vehicle.

A compact car stood nearby, its driver's side smashed, and its hood and engine destroyed. Another four-door sedan was overturned on the sidewalk.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was in the area when he heard a commotion and rushed over to the scene.

The attacker "is from east Jerusalem," he said. "They keep on inventing ways to attack us," he said. "Every work tool has become a weapon."

The three latest attacks in Jerusalem have been carried out by Palestinians from the city's eastern sector.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967, along with the West Bank, and annexed it. The 208,000 Palestinians who live there make up less than a third of the city's population. They are not Israeli citizens but carry Israeli ID cards that allow them freedom of movement throughout Israel, unlike West Bank Palestinians. Many east Jerusalem Palestinians work in construction in the Jewish parts of the city.

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