JERUSALEM, July 2: The Palestinian driver of a huge, yellow earthmover went on a rampage in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, ramming several cars and two buses before a police officer clambered onto the careening vehicle and shot him dead, police and witnesses said.

Officials said at least three people were killed and 30 were injured. The episode spread panic as the driver used the Caterpillar earthmover’s massive serrated scoop to overturn the bus from the Eged public transport company and leave a swathe of tangled wreckage 200 yards long, plowing over at least five cars and colliding with a second bus.

Police believed the driver may have planned to drive the earthmover into a crowded market nearby. “It could have been a lot worse,” said Micky Rosenfeld, the police said.

Police referred to the driver as a terrorist but his motive and identity were not immediately made known. “There’s no doubt that it was a terrorist attack,” Rosenfeld said. The driver was killed, the police spokesman said, when “one of our special patrol units made contact with him and stopped him from moving further along the street”.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place almost two weeks after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters the group did “not expect it will influence the Gaza calm”. Israel Radio described the driver as a 30-year-old Arab who was known to the authorities because of a criminal record. The attack was the first serious episode in Jerusalem since a Palestinian shot dead eight students at a yeshiva school in March.