Eight people were injured, some seriously, in an armed attack on a bus early Sunday (August 14) in central Jerusalem, Israeli police and rescue workers said.
” Police have been notified of a shooting at a bus near David’s Tomb…officers have cordoned off the scene and are looking for a suspect who fled “, said the police.
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. ” 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 walking with upper body injuries “Said two MDA rescuers in a testimony relayed by this organization.
” Everyone was panicking »
” I was coming back from the Wailing Wall. The bus was full of passengers. I stopped at the David’s Tomb bus stop. At this point the shooting started “, testified the driver of the bus, Daniel Kanievsky to a small group of journalists on the spot including the AFP. ” I saw two people on the bus bleeding. Everyone was panicking he added, standing in front of his bullet-riddled bus at the foot of Jerusalem’s Old City.
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 had been killed, including combatants and civilians, in operations and incidents in the West Bank.
Last week, the Israeli army conducted 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.
(with AFP)