One Israeli has been left dead and 16 others injured today after a truck charged down a busy main street in Tel Aviv hitting cars and pedestrians.

Police said they were examining whether the incident was intentional and a terrorist attack. They said the driver, a man from the nearby Arab village of Kfar Qassem, was being questioned.

A volunteer from Israeli emergency aid organisation ZAKA said his intitial understanding was that this was another fatal hit-and-run.

However Nati Shapira, who was one of the first on the scene, added: "While we were attending to the injured, word came through that this is a suspected terror attack. We immediately switched to the special behaviour that surrounds terror attacks."

Security has been heightened around Israel in anticipation of today’s Nakba day – the date Palestinians mourn the creation of the state of Israel.