ISRAELI occupation forces arrested five relatives yesterday of a Palestinian man who killed four soldiers on Sunday.

Four other residents of the Jabel Mukaber district of occupied east Jerusalem, where attacker Fadi Qunbar lived, were detained in the security crackdown.

The lorry driver rammed his vehicle into a group of soldiers on Sunday, killing four of them before being shot dead.

Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Galant demanded Mr Qunbar’s family be exiled to Syria as collective punishment for his actions and that other relatives be denied national insurance benefits.

The former army general told Ynet news he attended the security cabinet to “promote legislation that would give the interior minister the authority to immediately expel and, beyond that, the authority to immediately revoke national insurance benefits from the family of anyone involved in terror activity.

“We need to kill him, demolish his home, and expel his family,” he added, apparently unaware the assailant was already dead.

“And his family should be expelled not to Gaza but to Syria.”

Israeli special forces dismantled a mourning tent erected to receive visitors paying respects to Mr Qunbar, as police blocked some entrances to Jabel Mukaber and checked cars leaving it.

Mohammed Qunbar, the attacker’s cousin, said that Fadi lived a normal life but had carried out the attack as a result of Palestinian anger over what is seen as Israeli encroachment on Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, the al-Aqsa mosque.

On Sunday illegal Israeli settlers thew stones and bottles at Palestinians’ cars south of Nablus in the West Bank, then pulled some motorists from their vehicles and beat them.

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