Arab Drives Van Into Israeli Troops, Kills 2 : Mideast: Police say he was avenging the slayings of 18 Palestinians at Temple Mount last year.

A Palestinian, intent on avenging the killing of 18 Arabs at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount last year, drove his van into hitchhiking Israeli soldiers on Friday, killing two and injuring 11, police said.

The attack was condemned by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as an “act of terror.”

Police said the 25-year-old driver from a village in the occupied West Bank was arrested and that he acted on “nationalist grounds.” Tel Aviv police spokeswoman Dalia Gilad confirmed radio reports that the driver stated that he wanted to avenge the Temple Mount killings.

The episode came three days after Palestinians marked the first anniversary of the shootings on the mount, which is known in Arabic as Haram al Sharif. On Oct. 8, 1990, Israeli police opened fire to quell a disturbance at the site, killing 18 Palestinians and wounding at least 150.

The bloodshed set off a series of revenge attacks and counterattacks in which 19 Israelis, eight Palestinians and two foreign tourists were killed.

Shamir said the Palestinian’s attack Friday, at a busy intersection in Tel Aviv, is “further proof of the murderous character of our enemies, who do not loathe using any method to harm our sons.”

He pledged to “take all necessary actions to protect the lives of the citizens and prevent the reign of terror.”

One of the dead, Sgt. Shmuel Michaeli, 21, was from Bnei Brak. The other was Master Sgt. Aharon Kaluzne-Agmon, 36, from nearby Givatayim.

An Israeli sergeant said the van ran a red light, approached at 40 miles an hour and struck the two military police officers, who had been posted at the corner to keep order among the hitchhikers.

“He knocked three of the soldiers into the bus stop itself, and another two flew about 20 meters from the station,” said witness Avi Ben-Zikri on Israel TV.

Police said the driver is from the village of Kibya near Ramallah in the West Bank, captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War.

Villagers identified the man as Rateb Maslam. They said he had bought a stolen van with Israeli license plates so that he could move about free of suspicion in Israel and that he had left a letter explaining his intent.