At least six people were killed and several injured on Monday after two attackers opened fire on a busy bus stop in Jerusalem, Israeli officials said, marking the deadliest attack in the city in more than two years.
The gunmen, who arrived at the junction in a vehicle carrying weapons, ammunition and a knife, shot at dozens of people waiting near buses in the area.
“I saw people falling or getting hurt while trying to escape,” eyewitness Elazar Toledano told Reuters. Toledano said it took people a few seconds to understand what was happening after the first burst of gunfire. “Someone suddenly shouted ‘Terror attack!’ and people started running.”
The suspected attackers were killed by an Israeli combat soldier and a civilian at the site, prompting calls by far-right ministers for the arming of more civilians in Israel. Police identified the gunmen as Muthanna Omar, 20, and Muhammad Taha, 21, who are both from villages just outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.
One Spanish national was among the six killed, according to the Spanish Foreign Ministry. Twenty people were injured, according to Israel police.
Israeli special forces, ambulances and rescue workers rushed to the attack site where bloodstained pavements were littered with shattered glass from bus windows damaged in the shooting.
“When I first came to the area I saw a lot of people laying down in the street bleeding,” Fadi Dekaidek, one of the paramedics for Israel’s emergency services Magen David Adom, told CNN.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the area after holding a “situational assessment” with his heads of security, where he announced measures against Palestinian villages.
“We are pursuing and encircling the villages from which the murderers came. We will reach everyone who helped them and who sent them – and we will take even harsher measures,” Netanyahu said.
Itamar Ben Gvir, the country’s national security minister and a far-right member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, called on Israelis to “arm” themselves and Defense Minister Israel Katz warned of the “most severe and far-reaching consequences” to the attack.
Later Monday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited wounded victims of the attack at Shaare Zedek Medical Center. “The people of Israel must be strong and understand that we are going through a difficult period,” he said during the visit.
“In the end, we will emerge from it, just as we have emerged from other difficult times,” he added.
Several weapons, ammunition, and a knife used by the attackers were recovered from the scene, Israeli police said. – Mahmoud Illean/AP
The shooting marks the deadliest attack in the city in more than two years, when a Palestinian man opened fire killing seven people near a synagogue in January 2023. Ten months later, in November 2023, two Hamas militants killed three people in a shooting at a Jerusalem bus stop during a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. A fourth person was killed when an Israeli reservist shot a civilian who had responded to the attack.
In October 2024, two Hamas militants opened fire on a popular boulevard in southern Tel Aviv, killing seven people.
Hamas did not take responsibility for Monday’s shooting but issued a statement welcoming the attack.
The attack and its aftermath could heighten tensions in a city already on edge amid Israeli annexation plans and the ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked on October 7, 2023, when the militant group launched attacks on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others.
Warning to Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City on Monday, hours after Israel’s military intensified airstrikes on the urban area.
“In just two days, we have taken down 50 terror towers — and this is only the beginning of the intensified ground maneuver in Gaza City. I say to the residents: you have been warned — get out!” Netanyahu said in a video message.
Israel has been targeting high-rise towers in densely populated Gaza City in recent days as it moves forward with plans to occupy the enclave’s largest city.
“But all of this is just a prelude — just the beginning — to the main intensified action: the ground maneuver by our forces, who are now organizing and assembling on Gaza City,” Netanyahu added.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, more than 64,000 Palestinians have so far been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israeli settlers have also targeted Palestinians in parts of the occupied West Bank in recent months.
Last week, a security assessment presented to Israeli ministers in a meeting with Netanyahu warned of the potential of a flare-up in the occupied West Bank in the coming weeks, two Israeli officials briefed on the discussion told CNN.
The junction where Monday’s attack took place sits on the green line, which separates Israel from occupied territory in the West Bank. The road leads to Ramot, an area considered a settlement under international law but which Israel annexed into the city of Jerusalem.
One Israeli security official said a volatile combination of events – Western nations recognizing a Palestinian state, a Palestinian Authority under serious pressure, and Israeli overtures about West Bank annexation – could lead to a “serious escalation.”
The Palestinian Authority – who envision a future in governing Gaza after the war – issued a statement denouncing all forms of violence and terrorism, regardless of their source” and rejecting “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.”
This story has been updated.
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