(Jerusalem) Seven people were wounded, two critically, in an armed attack on a bus in central Jerusalem early Sunday, Israeli police and paramedics said.
Updated at 8:40am yesterday.
“Police received information that a bus was fired upon near David’s Tomb. […] “Officers have cordoned off the scene and are searching for the suspect who fled,” police said.
An AFP journalist noted a heavy police presence in front of the site, which is located near the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Megan David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, said she intervened after receiving reports of a shooting on a bus in Jerusalem.
“A total of seven people were injured in the terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s Old City, all conscious, one woman and six men, two of whom are in critical condition,” said Zaki Heller, a spokesman for the MDA.
“We quickly arrived at the scene. On Male Hashalom Street, […] Passers-by stopped us to treat two people in their 30s who were injured in the bus. They were conscious and walked away with upper body injuries,” two MDA rescue workers said in testimony provided by the organization.
“Everybody panicked”
“I was coming back from the Wailing Wall. The bus was full of passengers. I stopped at David’s Cemetery bus stop. At that moment, the shooting started,” bus driver Daniel Kaniewski testified to a small group of journalists at the scene, including AFP.
“I saw two people bleeding in the bus. Everyone panicked,” he added, standing in front of his bullet-riddled bus at the foot of Jerusalem’s Old City.
In the spring, 19 people — mostly Israeli civilians inside Israel — were killed in attacks mostly by Palestinians. All three Israeli Arab attackers were killed.
In the process, Israeli authorities carried out multiple operations in the occupied West Bank. More than 50 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed in actions and incidents in the West Bank.
Last week, the Israeli military launched a “preventive operation” in the Gaza Strip against the armed Islamist movement Islamic Jihad, which retaliated with rockets against Israel.
At least 49 Palestinians, including children, were killed by Islamic Jihad fighters this weekend in a military escalation that ended last Sunday with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.
