A general view shows the scene where a suspected ramming attack took place in Jerusalem, February 10, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

The driver of the car used in a terrorist ramming attack in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot on Friday morning had a long record of praising terrorist organizations on social media, Israeli news outlets reported.

A six-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were killed and at least five others were wounded when the terrorist, Hussein Qaraqa, plowed his Mazda vehicle into a crowd of people waiting at a bus stop. Qaraqa was shot dead by a police officer who was at the scene.

A senior Israeli official said that Qaraqa, who resided in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, appeared to have been severely mentally ill, and was released from a psychiatric hospital in northern Israel only days ago.

A survey of Qaraqa’s social media activities found that the 30-year-old had regularly praised Islamist groups sworn to Israel’s destruction.

“Long live our brave resistance, led by the free national leader Abu Tarek (the nom de guerre of the Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad –PIJ , Ziad al-Nakhle) and the Jihad movement, Al-Quds Brigades,” he wrote in one Facebook post last August.

Last December, Qaraqa appeared to criticize Hamas while expressing fulsome support for PIJ and its armed wing, the Al Quds Brigades.

“The Al-Quds Brigades are conducting the battle on their own, even if they say otherwise on television,” he wrote during renewed clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians. “But this is the truth and no Hamas target was bombed…I hope that Hamas will participate in the war to send a message to the occupier about the unity of the resistance and its axis, from inside and outside.”

Meanwhile, a Hamas spokesman was quick to praise Qaraqa’s attack on Friday.

“The heroic action in Jerusalem is a natural response to all the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Kassem declared.