A Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into Israeli buses, cars and pedestrians on one of Jerusalem's busiest streets on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding more than 40, emergency services said.
Police said the driver of the 20-tonne earthmoving vehicle was shot dead by a civilian and a policeman who climbed onto its cab as it careered for 500 metres (yards) along Jaffa Road.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility from militant groups and police said they were trying to establish if the dead man, a 30-year-old from Arab East Jerusalem, acted alone.
"It was definitely a terrorist attack," cabinet minister Roni Bar-On said.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad described the attack as a "natural" response by Palestinians to Israeli aggression but, nearly two weeks into a truce in the Gaza Strip, neither Islamist group laid claim to organising the Jerusalem violence.
Television footage showed bystanders pursuing the yellow roadworking vehicle as it ploughed through traffic. Some men in civilian clothes had climbed aboard and one fired a pistol into the cab as others wrestled inside.
After the struggle, a helmeted policeman in body armour fired his automatic rifle into the slumped figure in the cab. The officer later told reporters that he had fired twice, fearing the wounded man still posed a danger to the public.
"A bulldozer driven by an Arab went on a rampage on Jaffa Road, hitting pedestrians, buses and cars," police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
Witness Moshe Oren said at the scene: "The only way to stop him was with a bullet to the head. We saw a civilian climb onto the bulldozer and shoot the man. We were relieved."
Israel's main ambulance service said more than 40 people were taken to hospital. Two hours after the incident, rescue workers said they had pulled the body of a woman from a car that they had found crushed beneath the bulldozer.
It was the first Arab attack in Jewish west Jerusalem since a gunman killed eight students on March 6 at a Jewish religious school a few hundred metres (yards) from the scene of Wednesday's bloodshed.
After the midday (0900 GMT) attack, emergency vehicles rushed to Jaffa Road, scene of several suicide bombings on buses in the past decade or so. Part of the street is dug up as part of a major project to build a tramway through the city.
Among the vehicles damaged was a van with its entire front crushed and a No. 13 bus, flipped on its side and gashed by the shovel of the bulldozer. Blood smeared the bus's shattered windscreen and trailed along the street.
