At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, five in serious condition, when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the busy Ramot junction in north Jerusalem on Monday morning, according to authorities.
All of the victims were at a bus stop or on a bus packed with passengers that was stuck in a morning traffic jam.
“I was inside the bus,” said eyewitness Malka Cohen. “It was full of people... When the doors opened, we got out, and terrorists came and shot like crazy. I was lucky that I was at the back door, and ran away. The terrorists came from the front. There were shots in my ears. It was terrible.”
Video footage showed terrified bus passengers fleeing the scene along with car drivers and passengers stuck in the traffic jam. A soldier and a civilian opened fire, killing the two assailants, who police said were West Bank Palestinians.
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Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised the two Palestinian “resistance fighters” who carried out the attack, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
[ Eight Israelis injured in shooting attack in Jerusalem’s Old CityOpens in new window ]
The Palestinian Authority presidency, in contrast, condemned the attack. “The presidency affirms its stance in rejecting and condemning any harm to Palestinian and Israeli civilians, and rejects all forms of violence, regardless of their source,” the president’s office said in a statement.
The Spanish government has confirmed that a Spanish citizen was among the six people killed in the east Jerusalem attack.
Paramedic Niv Taib, who arrived at the scene, described the destruction. “We saw people lying unconscious on the side of the road and the pavement near a bus stop,” he said. “There was a lot of destruction at the scene, shattered glass on the floor and a lot of commotion.”
The dead, five men and a woman, all civilians, were from the ultra-Orthodox community.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sent reinforcements to the Ramallah area of the West Bank, close to where the attack took place and from which the assailants are said to have travelled.
President Yitzhak Herzog condemned the shooting. “This shocking attack reminds us once again that we are fighting absolute evil,” he wrote in a statement. “The world must understand what we are up against, and that terror will never defeat us.”
Speaking at the scene of the shooting, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the attack was one front of many.
“A mighty war against terror is taking place on all fronts. The fighting continues in the Gaza Strip. Israel will destroy Hamas as we promised and free our hostages – all of our hostages,” he said.
“Sadly, the war also continues in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, where we have acted with great force,” he said, using the biblical term for the West Bank.
Far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, at the scene of the attack, accused High Court judges of encouraging terror to “raise its head”, citing a ruling on Sunday that deemed Israel was not properly feeding Palestinian security prisoners.
His Otzma Yehudit party said it will make a renewed push for the death penalty for terrorists in response to Monday’s attack.
Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionist party, said the West Bank Palestinian villages from which the gunmen came should be “flattened”, similarly to areas of Gaza conquered by the IDF.
The European Union condemned the shooting, saying it “underscored the urgent need for a ceasefire” in Gaza.
“We condemn this attack, as we condemn all loss of lives,” European Union spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said. “We call for de-escalation, and this shows how necessary and critical a ceasefire is.”
