In what has been described as a terrorist act, a Palestinian truck driver rammed into a bus killing four Israeli soldiers and injuring 17.
The Israeli soldiers were reported to getting off the bus in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon when the driver attacked.
The police called the episode an act of terrorism.
According to the New York Times, Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the attacker had been shot.
The police released images showing the truck’s windshield riddled with bullet holes.
The dead included three female soldiers and one male soldier, the Israeli military confirmed. Several people were hospitalized, some with critical injuries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene of the attack and said the perpetrator was “by all indications a supporter of the Islamic State.”
“We are aware that there has been a slew of attacks, and there certainly could be a link between them, from France and Berlin, and now Jerusalem,” he added.
Netanyahu has often made the comparison between local attacks against Israelis and those in the rest of the world, though the attacks in Israel are more broadly viewed as being more connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While the Israeli security services have described a few Palestinian attackers as having been inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State, no direct links have been established between them and the organization.
The attack on Sunday occurred on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade, a popular tourist spot between East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem that offers sweeping views of the Old City.
The violence ended several months of relative calm in the contested city, after a period of frequent stabbings, shootings and car attacks.
It also underlined the volatility of the situation at a time when President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, said on Friday that the Palestinians would view any such change in the status quo in Jerusalem as the crossing of a red line.
