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Published Saturday 18/04/2015

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- A Palestinian driver deliberately rammed his car into a Jerusalem bus stop this week and killed an Israeli man, Israeli police chief Yohanan Danino said on Saturday.

Following an investigation into Wednesday's incident, Danino ruled out initial suggestions that it had been an accident, claiming it was "a horrible attack."

Shalom Yohai Cherki, 26, and Shira Klein, 20, were seriously injured in the attack on the bus stop in East Jerusalem.

Cherki, the son of a prominent rabbi, Ouri Cherki, died of his injuries on Thursday morning and was buried later that day.

The driver, a 37-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, was also hurt during the incident.

He was arrested and interrogated by Israeli police.

Tensions have been running high in East Jerusalem since last summer when Jewish extremists kidnapped and murdered a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Abu Khdeir.

There have been several attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians in the months since.

Israeli forces have also detained hundreds of Palestinians across East Jerusalem, including 600 alone in the two months after Abu Khdeir's death, and Israeli forces have also injured dozens of Palestinians.

Earlier this month, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that for the second time in three weeks, Israeli forces had shot and injured a Palestinian child, a 13-year-old girl, with rubber-coated steel bullets as she was making her way back from school close to Shufat checkpoint.

OCHA also recently reported that Israeli forces killed more Palestinian civilians across the occupied Palestinian Territories in 2014 than in any other year since the occupation began in 1967.

Ma'an staff contributed to this report.