JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Tuesday demolished homes of two Palestinian militants in east Jerusalem, the army's first concrete steps following a late night Cabinet meeting in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a "strong hand" to quell recent deadly attacks.

The demolitions come amid weeks of heightened Palestinian unrest in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and a bloody holiday weekend in which four Israelis were killed in shooting and stabbing attacks. Israeli forces have killed four Palestinians during violent protests.

The violence threatens a new Israeli-Palestinian escalation at a time when a political solution to the conflict is increasingly distant and Palestinian frustrations are mounting after years of diplomatic paralysis.

The homes demolished early Tuesday belonged to the families of a man who killed four worshippers and a police officer in a Jerusalem synagogue last year, and a second attacker who killed one person when he rammed a bulldozer into traffic. Although the attackers were immediately killed, Israel often carries out such demolitions of the homes of militants' families, believing it will deter future attacks.

Also Tuesday, troops sealed off a room at the home of a third attacker, who tried to kill a prominent Orthodox Jewish activist last year, ahead of its potential demolition.

Thousands of Israelis, including three ministers in Netanyahu's own government, demonstrated outside the prime minister's home on Monday night, demanding tough action.

The rash of violence began Thursday when Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in their car near a settlement in the West Bank as their four children watched from the backseat.

Two days later, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death and seriously wounded his wife as they walked in Jerusalem's Old City, then attacked and killed another Israeli man.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, killed two suspected Palestinian assailants over the weekend and on Monday shot dead two teenage stone-throwers in West Bank clashes, one of them a 13-year-old boy.

Undercover Israeli troops later raided a Nablus hospital and nabbed a wounded Palestinian suspected of killing the Israeli couple.

Israeli intelligence said the Palestinian gunman had been accidentally shot by his friend as they killed the Israelis in Thursday's drive-by shooting, prompting them to flee the scene and likely saving the lives of the four children in the back seat.

Netanyahu said Israel has also deployed thousands more troops in the crackdown.

"We are acting with a strong hand against terrorism and against inciters. We are operating on all fronts," he said late Monday. "We are in a difficult struggle but one thing should be clear - we will win. Just as we defeated previous waves of terrorism, we will defeat this one as well."

Tensions have been high in recent weeks over a major Jerusalem shrine that is sacred to Muslims and Jews and is key to the rival national narratives by the two sides. Many Palestinians believe that Israel is trying to expand a Jewish presence at the site, a claim Netanyahu has denied. The hilltop compound is revered by Muslims as the spot where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and by Jews as the site of the two Jewish biblical Temples.

There have been several days of clashes at the site over the past few weeks as Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque while hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks at police. The unrest later spread to Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and to the West Bank.

This story has been corrected to show that five people were killed in the synagogue attack last year, not seven.