Car attack injures Israeli troops

JERUSALEM: A car-ramming targeting Israeli troops in Jerusalem wounded 14 people on Thursday in an attack that Palestinian Islamist group Hamas hailed as a response to Washington’s controversial Middle East peace plan.

A manhunt was underway for the driver who fled the scene outside a popular Jerusalem entertainment spot. The attack occurred shortly before 2:00 am local time outside the First Station, an historic Ottoman-era railway terminus that has been turned into a cultural and entertainment centre with bars and restaurants. The attacker struck in the street outside where the soldiers had been marching, the army said. One of then soldiers was “severely injured” and has been evacuated to hospital.

Public radio said they were new recruits on their way to an induction ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. “During the incident, a terrorist sped his car towards (Israeli) soldiers,” the army said.

Israeli troops “are currently pursuing the terrorist who escaped the scene.”

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said “the incident is being investigated as a terror attack.”

There have been car-rammings targeting Israeli troops in the past, in the occupied West Bank as well as Jerusalem. The Islamist Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, hailed the car-ramming as a “practical response” to US President Donald Trump’s controversial Middle East peace plan. AFP