JERUSALEM, July 3: Israeli authorities are considering demolishing the home of a Palestinian man who went on a bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing three people before he was shot dead.

A previous military inquiry found that the practice was ineffectual, but much of the political establishment has come out in favour of destroying the house of any Jerusalem Palestinian who conducts attacks in Israel.

“Following a request by the government, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz will look into the legal problems that might be involved in demolishing the houses in east Jerusalem,” justice spokesman Moshe Cohen said.

Israeli law distinguishes between Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the 1967 Middle East war, and the rest of the occupied West Bank, which remains under military rule.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised the issue just hours after a Palestinian from east Jerusalem ploughed a bulldozer into several vehicles on a deadly rampage in the heart of the city.

“The prime minister held consultations on Wednesday night with the relevant government bodies and the military in the wake of the attack,” Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said.

“They discussed different means of action,” including revoking residency permits, scrapping social welfare benefits and house demolitions.

In remarks at an economic conference on Thursday, Olmert said: “If we need to destroy houses, we will destroy houses; if we need to stop social welfare we will stop social welfare.”

A senior official in the welfare ministry said the government would cut off all social benefits to the family of the attacker.

President Shimon Peres told public radio that “yesterday’s terrorist may have chosen not to carry out his attack if he had known his family could be punished for the act.”Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon also said he considered it “just that the house of the bulldozer terrorist should be destroyed”, but he acknowledged “it would not prevent the next attack”.

During the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s Israel systematically destroyed the homes of Palestinians involved in deadly attacks. The practice stopped in 2005 after then military chief of staff, Lt Gen Moshe Yaalon, said it was ineffective as a deterrent.

Security forces on Thursday detained an uncle of the bulldozer driver in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sur Baher, where the attacker, identified as Hossam Dwayyat, 30, lived.

They also ordered relatives to take down a mourning tent set up outside the uncle’s house.Authorities called the attack “an act of terrorism”, but Police Commissioner Dudi Cohen said it appeared to be a “spontaneous incident” carried out by a father of two with a criminal past but no known links to armed groups.

Dwayyat’s brother, Issam, told Israel’s Ynet news service that the family refused to believe their son carried out a terror attack.

“My brother did not belong to any organisation. He wasn’t even a religious person. After terror attacks he always used to say, ‘What is this nonsense? Why do we need this?’” Issam said.

“Any person responsible for a road accident is alarmed and afraid. This can happen to anyone, and this could have been a road accident. It’s possible that my brother was scared when people started chasing him and shooting,” he said.

Tearful relatives and neighbours gathered at the house after the attack insisted he was an ordinary person who, like most of them, worked in mostly Jewish west Jerusalem to support his family.

However, Issam did not rule out that his brother might have lost control and gone on a rampage under the influence of drugs. “It was easy to irritate him. He had a criminal record for violent offences and he was punished for this.”—AFP