Israeli police shot and killed a suspected Hamas activist after he plowed his minivan into a crowd in Jerusalem, killing one cop and injuring thirteen more people.  It was one of two such attacks on Israelis that followed clashes between police and Palestinians at the Al Aqsa Mosque.

There are a lot of security cameras in Israel, and this attack was caught by several of them, as well as witnesses with mobile phone cameras.  The driver of the van is identified as 38-year old Ibrahim al-Akari.  Hamas praised the van attack as an act of “self-defense” to Israel’s “aggression” in the West Bank.  Later in the day, a second Palestinian rammed a car into a group of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, injuring at least three.  This comes two weeks after a similar attack in the same area in which a Palestinian driver killed a baby and mortally wounded a women with a car before being shot and killed by Israeli security.

Al-Akari’s wife said he was angered by a confrontation between police and Palestinians at the Al Aqsa Mosque earlier in the day in which part of the shrine was damaged.  Israeli police dispersed a crowd of rock-throwing youths who were intent on a breaking up a by a Jewish group to the Temple Mount, which is claimed as a holy site by both sides.

Meanwhile Jordan has recalled its ambassador to Israel over what it called the “unprecedented Israeli escalation” at holy and sensitive sites in Jerusalem, and filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council.