Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in east Jerusalem on Monday, killing six people and wounding several others, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in one of the deadliest anti-Israeli attacks since the outbreak of the Gaza war.
“Palestinian terrorists murdered six Israelis,” Saar said, adding that one of the dead was a recent immigrant from Spain.
Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) had earlier reported 15 people wounded in the late morning attack at the Ramot Junction in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, with seven in serious condition. Police said the two gunmen were also killed.
Four of the dead were ultra-Orthodox Israeli men, according to local media.
Spain’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, affirming its “commitment to peace in the Middle East”.
At the scene of the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Let it be clear: these murders strengthen our determination to fight terrorism.”
“We are now engaged in pursuit and are cordoning off the villages from which the murderers came. We will apprehend whoever aided and dispatched them, and we will take even stronger steps.”
The Israeli army said troops were “encircling several areas on the outskirts of Ramallah” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in response to the attack.
French President Emmanuel Macron “strongly condemned the terrorist attack”, as did the United Arab Emirates, while German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul described it as “cowardly”.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, praised the attack, saying it was carried out by two Palestinian militants.
“We affirm that this operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and the genocide it is waging against our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
– ‘Horrific’ –
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blamed the attack on the Palestinian Authority, which he claimed “raises and educates its children to murder Jews”.
“The Palestinian Authority must disappear from the map, and the villages from which the attackers came should be reduced to the status of Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” he wrote on X, referring to cities in Gaza that have been devastated by Israeli air strikes.
The PA is a civilian ruling authority in areas of the West Bank, where about three million Palestinians live — as well as around half a million Israelis occupying settlements considered illegal under international law.
Israeli paramedic Fadi Dekaidek, who was at the scene, called the attack “severe”.
“The wounded were lying on the road and sidewalk near a bus stop, some of them unconscious,” he said in a statement issued by MDA.
Police said the attackers opened fire towards the bus stop after arriving in a vehicle.
“A security officer and a civilian at the scene responded immediately, returned fire, and neutralised the attackers,” they said in a statement.
The shooting was one of the deadliest incidents of its kind since the war in Gaza began after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 64,522 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
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