Over a dozen Israeli soldiers and some civilians were wounded here late Monday night when a Palestinian man steered a car into a crowd, said police and rescue workers.

Israeli police officers stand at the scene of an attack in Jerusalem September 22, 2008. A man driving a black BMW plowed into a crowd of people at a busy Jerusalem intersection Monday evening, leaving 19 people hurt, an Israel Police spokesman told Xinhua. (Xinhua Photo)

A total of 15 soldiers and four civilians were wounded and rushed into hospital for treatment, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Xinhua at the spot. The Magen David Adom rescue service reported that two of them were in serious conditions.

The driver was identified early Tuesday morning as Kasem Mugrabi, 19, from an Arab village named Jabel Mukaber in east Jerusalem, a mainly Arab section of the holy city that the Palestinians want to be the capital of their future state.

“I saw the car coming quickly and hit a group of soldiers and students standing there,” local daily Ha’aretz quoted an eyewitness as saying. “It happened very fast. It was impossible to know beforehand that this is what he intended to do.”

Wails of police sirens were heard across downtown Jerusalem when the incident took place. Xinhua correspondents who rushed to the scene saw the vehicle, a black BMW, lying on the pedestrian lane, with its front bumper and hood contorted and its front and rear window glass smashed.

Local TV network Channel 2 reported that a previously unknown group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The police has launched an investigation into the incident, on which they did not received any prior intelligence, Rosenfeld added. Franco told reporters that the driver was apparently acting alone.

A resident living nearby, who gave her name as Esther, told Xinhua at the scene that she noticed the car roving around the spot, with three people in it, for at least half an hour before the incident happened. As to the fact that only a driver was in the car during the attack, she added that she did not know where the other two had gone.

Separately, Israel Radio reported that a large group of mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews chased an Arab into the Old City following the attack.

The police is likely to further beef up the security measures in and around Jerusalem, as the level of alert has already been kept high in the holy city recently due to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the upcoming Jewish New Year’s Day and other holidays.

In the wake of the incident, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak released a statement demanding a green light to demolish homes of those who he called Palestinian terrorists as deterrence.

Exactly two months ago, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem rammed a bulldozer into pedestrians and cars in downtown Jerusalem, injuring 16 people, before he was shot dead.

A similar attack shocked the holy city 10 days earlier, during which another Palestinian went on a bulldozer rampage in the downtown area of the holy city, killing three Israelis and injuring over 40, before he was killed.

The two bulldozer incidents followed a shooting spree at a religious school in Jerusalem on March 6, during which eight Israeli students were killed by a Palestinian before he was shot dead at the scene.

After each of the three attacks, calls increased among the Israeli public to destroy the attackers’ homes, a move the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against several years ago.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet