(Jerusalem) Seven people were injured, two seriously, in an armed attack on a bus early Sunday in central Jerusalem, Israeli police and paramedics said.
Posted at 8:10 p.m.
“The police were informed of a shooting at a bus near David’s Tomb, […] officers have cordoned off the scene and are looking for a suspect who fled,” police said.
An AFP journalist noted a strong police deployment in front of this site, located near the Wailing Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Magen David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, said it intervened after receiving reports of shootings at a bus in Jerusalem.
“There are a total of seven wounded, all conscious, one woman and six men, two of whom are in serious condition, in the terrorist attack in the Old City of Jerusalem,” said Zaki Heller, spokesperson for the MDA.
“We arrived quickly on the scene. On Ma’ale Hashalom Street, […] passers-by stopped us to treat two men aged around 30 who were injured on the bus. They were conscious and walked with upper body injuries,” said two MDA rescue workers in a testimony relayed by this organization.
By spring, 19 people – mostly Israeli civilians inside Israel – had been killed, mostly in attacks by Palestinians. Three Israeli Arab attackers were also killed.
In the process, the Israeli authorities had multiplied operations in the occupied West Bank. More than 50 Palestinians have been killed, including combatants and civilians, in operations and incidents in the West Bank.
Last week, the Israeli army carried out a “preventive operation” against the Islamic Jihad, an armed Islamist movement, in the Gaza Strip, which responded with salvoes of rockets against Israel.
At least 49 Palestinians, including Islamic Jihad fighters, but also children, died in this weekend of military escalation which ended last Sunday with a truce favored by the mediation of Egypt.