Bulldozer Attack in Jerusalem Linked to Palestinian Evictions »

It has been speculated that the attack by a 26-year-old Palestinian man ramming a bulldozer into an Israeli police car in Jerusalem was linked to Israeli plans to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, widely believed to be part of the Jewish state's strategy to change the face of the holy city by expelling its Arab residents.

Palestinian sources said that the man who attacked the police car on Thursday, Mirii al-Radaydeh, was a resident of East Jerusalem and married with one child. He had no history of militancy and acted alone, suggesting that he was responding in rage against escalating Israeli policies against Arab Jerusalemites.

Radaydeh was the fourth Palestinian driver of a construction vehicle to go on the rampage against Israelis in West Jerusalem since last July.

Palestinian officials are warning that protests against evictions, demolitions, expanding Jewish settlements and attempts to consolidate the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem will turn more violent if these measures are not reversed.

Thursday's attack, which the Israelis called a "terrorist" act, slightly injured the two policemen in their police car before the Palestinian was shot dead by a nearby policeman and a passing taxi driver.

Palestinian officials and analysts have linked the incident to the Jerusalem municipality's eviction orders of more than 1,500 Palestinians living in some 180 houses in the East Jerusalem suburb of Silwan area.

It will become the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians since the Israeli occupation in the 1967 war.

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