Israeli police investigators work at the scene of a shooting attack that injured several Israelis near the Old City of Jerusalem, early Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022.
Maya Alerutsa / AP
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Maya Alerutsa / AP
Israeli police investigators work at the scene of a shooting attack that injured several Israelis near the Old City of Jerusalem, early Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022.
Maya Alerutsa / AP
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday, wounding eight Israelis in an attack that came a week after violence flared between Israel and militants in Gaza, police and medics said.
Two of the victims were in critical condition, including a pregnant woman with abdominal wounds and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, according to Israeli hospitals treating them.
US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides tweeted that US citizens were among the injured. The press secretary of the embassy did not disclose any other information or details.
The shooting happened as the bus was waiting in a parking lot near the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray. Israeli media identified the alleged attacker as a 26-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem.
Israeli police said that forces were sent to the scene to investigate. Israeli security forces also stormed the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in pursuit of the suspected attacker.
Later on Sunday, police said the suspected attacker surrendered. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the suspected attacker was a resident of Jerusalem who acted alone during the shooting and who had previously been arrested by Israel.
The attack in Jerusalem followed a tense week between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group, sparking three days of fierce cross-border fighting. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the outbreak to avenge airstrikes that killed two of its commanders and other militants. Israel said the attack was aimed at thwarting threats by the group to respond to the arrest of one of its officials in the occupied West Bank.
Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed and several hundred wounded in the fighting, which ended in an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. None of the Israelis were killed or seriously injured.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, stayed away.
A day after a ceasefire halted the worst round of fighting in Gaza in more than a year, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a firefight that began during a detention raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
