A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday morning, wounding eight Israelis in an attack that came a week after violence flared between Israel and the militants. troops in Gaza, police and medics said.
Two of the victims are in serious condition, including a pregnant woman with abdominal wounds and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, according to Israeli hospitals that treated them.
The US ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, tweeted that US citizens were among the injured. An embassy spokesperson did not disclose any other information or details.
The shooting happened as the bus was waiting in a parking lot near the Western Wall, considered the holiest site where Jews can pray. Israeli media identified the suspected attacker as a 26-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem.
Israeli police said forces were dispatched to the scene to investigate. Israeli security forces also entered the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in pursuit of the suspected attacker.
Later on Sunday, police said the suspected attacker had turned himself in. Speaking at his cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the suspected attacker was a resident of Jerusalem who was operating alone in the shooting and had previously been captured by the Israelis. .
Fighting broke out last week
The Jerusalem attack comes after a week of tension between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli planes carried out an attack in the Gaza Strip against the Islamic Jihad militant group and began three days of fierce cross-border fighting. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the outbreak in retaliation for the airstrikes, which killed two of the force’s commanders and other militants. Israel said the attack was aimed at deterring threats from the group in response to the arrest of one of its officials in the occupied West Bank.
Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed and several hundred wounded in the fighting, which ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire. No Israelis were killed or seriously injured.
The Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, remains on the sidelines.
A day after a cease-fire ended the worst round of fighting in Gaza in more than a year, the Israeli military killed three Palestinian gunmen and wounded dozens in a shootout that broke out during a raid. captured in the city of Nablus, West Coast.
