Five people were killed, one was critically injured, and six others were seriously wounded on Monday in a shooting attack on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli publication Haaretz reported.
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.
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.
Haaretz further said that the two suspects had been shot dead by “a civilian member of the security forces who was present at the scene”, citing the police.
“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 conducted a situation assessment with officials and has arrived at the site of the shooting.
Meanwhile, Hamas, which has been fighting Israel in Gaza for nearly two years, issued a statement about the attack, 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 said, according to AFP. The group stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Similarly, Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group did not claim responsibility for it.
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.
