Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday morning, injuring eight Israelis in an attack that came a week after violence flared up between Israeli and Gaza militants. said police and medical officials.
The two victims, including an injured pregnant woman and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, were in critical condition, according to Israeli hospitals.
US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides tweeted that an American was among the injured. An embassy spokesperson did not disclose any other information or details. ADL New York/New Jersey tweeted that some of the victims were members of the same family in Brooklyn and Monsey.
The shooting occurred as the bus was waiting in a parking lot near David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the old city walls. Israeli media have identified the suspect as his 26-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem.
Israeli police said troops had been dispatched to the scene to investigate. Israeli security forces also pursued the suspect into the nearby Palestinian quarter of Silwan.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that the suspect in the attack was a Jerusalem resident who was acting alone during the shooting and had been previously arrested. by Israel.
The attacks in Jerusalem followed a week of tension between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli aircraft launched attacks targeting Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, beginning three days of fierce fighting across the border. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets into the flames in retaliation for airstrikes, killing two commanders and other militants. Israel said the attack was to thwart threats from the group in response to the arrest of one of his officials in the occupied West Bank.
Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed and hundreds wounded in the fighting, which ended in a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. did not.
Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, remained on the sidelines.
A day after a ceasefire halted fighting in the Gaza Strip, the worst in more than a year, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus. injured dozens of people.