6 killed, several others injured in Jerusalem shooting attack: Israeli foreign minister

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Monday’s bus stop shooting in Jerusalem killed six people and injured several others, including a pregnant woman, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said at a press conference during a visit to Budapest.

Earlier, emergency service and medical teams “pronounced the deaths of four victims, including a man about 50 years old and three men aged around 30”, a statement from Magen David Adom — Israel’s emergency service — said, adding it was providing medical treatment to several other people, with five evacuated to hospitals.

The service received reports of more than a dozen people injured by gunfire on Monday at a road junction in east Jerusalem, with police saying the assailants had been “neutralised”.

It later said paramedics and ambulance crews were providing medical treatment and evacuating five “seriously wounded people” who had been sent to hospitals in Jerusalem.

“Several other victims, with varying degrees of injury, are also being treated at the scene,” it added.

Two Israeli policemen speak to a border guard next to a bus at the scene of a shooting at the Ramot road junction in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on September 8. — AFP

It was not immediately clear who carried out the shooting or what the motive was. Israeli police described the shooters as “terrorists” without saying how many had been involved in the incident. They also claimed that the perpetrators had been killed, according to Reuters.

The Israeli ambulance service said earlier that 15 people were wounded and at least five were in serious condition with gunshot wounds. Paramedics arriving at the scene found victims lying on the road and sidewalk near a bus stop, some of them unconscious.

Footage from a dashboard camera at the scene showed people fleeing from the vicinity of a bus stopped by the side of a road as shots rang out. Another video showed a bus’s windscreen and windows pierced with bullet holes.

“Suddenly I hear the shots starting … I felt like I was running for an eternity,” Ester Lugasi, who was injured in the attack, told Israeli TV from the hospital. “I thought I was going to die.”

Haaretz further said, citing the police, that the two suspects had been shot dead by “a civilian member of the security forces who was present at the scene”.

“The Israeli security establishment estimates that the two are West Bank residents, and that they fired at a bus and a bus stop at the junction,” the newspaper reported.

Haaretz also reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the site of the shooting after he conducted a situation assessment with officials. Speaking at the scene of the attack, Netanyahu said Israeli forces were pursuing suspects who aided the shooters.

Several weapons, ammunition and a knife used by the attackers were recovered at the scene, police said.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he was “deeply shocked” by the incident, describing it as a “cowardly terror attack”.

“My thoughts are with the victims’ families. I wish those who were injured a speedy recovery,” he wrote on X.

In October 2024, two Palestinians, one armed with a gun and the other armed with a knife, killed seven people in Tel Aviv.

In November 2023, two Palestinian gunmen killed three people at a Jerusalem bus stop. Israeli security services said that the attackers in the 2023 Jerusalem shooting were linked to Hamas.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad do not claim responsibility

Meanwhile, Hamas issued a statement about the attack, not claiming it but saying it was carried out by two Palestinians.

“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 stated, according to AFP.

Al Jazeera reported that in its statement, Hamas called for “more armed attacks in occupied territory”. It quoted the group as saying that Israel’s aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank “will not weaken the determination of our people and their resistance”.

Similarly, Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group did not claim responsibility for it.

Al Jazeera reported that the group’s armed wing said in a short statement that the shooting was “a natural and legitimate response to the ongoing crimes of the Zionist enemy” in Palestinian territories.

However, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement which condemned “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians”.

Israel likely to retaliate for Jerusalem shootings: expert

Israel will likely respond to the shooting with acts of retribution targeting the homes of the gunmen, going by its track record of retaliation to previous attacks, Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg says.

“I would assume the response would be extremely tactical,” he said, according to Al Jazeera. “They would try to identify the gunmen who carried out the attack, then they would go after their village or town of residence, [and] demolish their homes.”

He said in response to a previous attack, Israel had ordered thousands of trees to be destroyed in an attacker’s home village. “They would take all kinds of punitive actions,” he said.

“Israel is not capable of carrying out anything that is broader than a … tit-for-tat, trying to show it has the upper hand by using an excessive level of force,” he added. “This is true in Gaza, it’s going to be true in the West Bank.”