Obscure Palestinian group claims Jerusalem truck attack

An obscure Palestinian groupclaimed responsibility on Monday for a truck ramming inJerusalem that killed four Israeli soldiers, an attack thatIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier waslikely inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The female army officer and three officer cadets who werekilled in Sunday's incident were buried on Monday. Seventeenother people were injured when the truck barrelled into a groupof Israeli soldiers. The Palestinian driver, identified as 28-year-oldFadial-Qunbar,from East Jerusalem, was shot dead.

"We know the identity of the attacker. According to all thesigns he is a supporter of Islamic State," Netanyahu said.

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The attack, however, was claimed by the "Groups of MartyrBaha Eleyan" in a post on Arabic social media. The organizationsaid it was formed by Palestinians who "have no links outsidePalestine."It said it had acted previously, giving no details,and threatened more attacks.

"This is not the first operation executed by our groups andit will be followed by a flood of distinctive operations indefence of our Jerusalem and in revenge of our martyrs andprisoners," its statement said.

The group has not been heard of previously and Reuters wasunable to authenticate the validity of the claim.

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Iraq and Syria are the strongholds of ISIS militants although the jihadist group has taken responsibilityfor deadly attacks in many countries around the world.

However, actions inspired by ISIS in Israel, theIsraeli-occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem have been rare andonly a few dozen Arab Israelis and Palestinians are known tohave declared their sympathy with ISIS.

Netanyahu visited some of the injured in hospital on Mondayand said Israel needed to prepare to face a different threat.

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"I think the most important thing we need to understand isthat we are under a new kind of attack. An attack by a loneassailant who is inspired, and on the spur of the moment decidesto act, in this case, a ramming attack," he told reporters.

He said extra security steps were being taken, such asadding physical barriers in public places, intensifyingintelligence efforts to help identify and track potentialassailants, and raising the vigilance of security forces.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks on Israelis, includingvehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completelysince it began in October 2015. Thirty-seven Israelis and twovisiting Americans have been killed in those assaults.

During the same period, at least 231 Palestinians have beenkilled in violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel says that at least 157 of them were assailants whileothers died during clashes and protests, blaming the violence onincitement by the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rulein the West Bank, denies that allegation; it says assailantshave acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of landthat Palestinians seek for an independent state. Peace talksbetween the two sides have been stalled since 2014.