Jerusalem bulldozer killer acted alone

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police have concluded that aPalestinian construction worker who killed three Israelis witha bulldozer in Jerusalem last week acted alone and not as partof a militant organisation, a spokesman said on Sunday.

"(He) improvised the attack on his own," police spokesmanMicky Rosenfeld said on a day when hundreds of officers were onhand to protect some 30 Israelis who demonstrated near the deadattacker's house to demand his family home be demolished, or incase the protest turned violent.

Hosam Dwayyat crushed cars and overturned a bus onWednesday on one of Jerusalem's busiest streets. No majormilitant group claimed responsibility and relatives andneighbours described Dwayyat, 30, as a troubled man with arecord of drug offences.

They insisted the family had been unaware of hisintentions.

Rosenfeld said Dwayyat, who was shot dead at the scene, hadshouted the Muslim slogan "Allahu akbar!" (God is greatest) andsaid police took that to indicate that he had intended to kill.

Bearing placards reading "Destroy the house" and "We wantrevenge", about 30 Israelis were given armed police protectionto protest at the house occupied by about 20 relatives ofDwayyat in a West Bank village annexed to Jerusalem by Israel.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government has already takenlegal advice paving the way for demolition -- a tactic that hasin the past provoked international condemnation of Israel.

"That is his house," said Baruch Marzel, a leader of Jewishsettlers in the West Bank, pointing out the Dwayyat home.

"We ... will come here again and again until his house andall the houses of the people who helped him will be destroyed."

BULLDOZERS

Israel's attorney-general ruled last week that a governmentmove to destroy the house would be legal -- but he also notedthat it could face further legal challenges.

Israeli armoured bulldozers have demolished hundreds ofPalestinian homes in the past decade on the grounds they havebeen built without permission. Palestinians complain thatIsrael unfairly denies building permits to Arabs in theoccupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, while encouraging Jewsto build there.

In the past, the family homes of suicide bombers and otherattackers have also been razed. This has been rarer following asharp decline in such attacks and a 2005 challenge to thepractice by human rights groups in Israel's Supreme Court.

Wednesday's attack was the first in the city since anotherPalestinian with Israeli residence rights in Jerusalem shotdead eight students at a seminary in Jewish west Jerusalem inMarch.

Israel has effectively sealed off the Gaza Strip andoccupied West Bank, building hundreds of kilometres (miles) ofwall and fence around these areas to keep potential attackersout. But the roughly quarter of a million Palestinians givenJerusalem residency rights when Israel annexed East Jerusalemand neighbouring West Bank villages have freedom of movement.

That prompted one senior aide to Olmert to suggest hivingoff some Arab-populated areas of what Israel currentlyconsiders the municipality of Jerusalem. Olmert himself saidIsrael should destroy the homes of "every terrorist inJerusalem".

Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and nearby areas isnot recognised internationally and Palestinians are negotiatingto have the capital of their future state in the city.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Caroline Drees)