Israeli security forces at the scene of a deadly bus stop shooting in Jerusalem where six people were killed and 12 injured (Image Credit: AP)
A fatal shooting on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem has kindled anxieties of mounting violence after six were killed and 12 injured in a Monday morning attack perpetrated by two Palestinian shooters.
The assailants opened fire at a busy bus stop in the Ramot intersection at the height of nighttime rush-hour. The police established that both attackers, who were Palestinians from the West Bank, were shot dead on the spot by an off-duty soldier and armed civilian. Israeli rescue services said victims ranged from a 50-year-old man, a woman aged around 50, and three men aged in their 30s. A number of others are in critical condition with gunshot injuries.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, issuing a statement from Hungary, denounced the shooting as a "terrible terror attack," affirming that Israel is in a state of war with "radical Islamist terrorism." He called for the international community to stand firm, declaring, "Every country must decide are they with Israel, or with the jihadists?"
After the attack, Israeli troops closed off surrounding Palestinian towns around Ramallah, looking for further attackers or hidden explosives. The militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations condemned the shooters as "resistance fighters," but neither of them claimed responsibility directly. Photographs of the crime scene circulating online indicated that a Carlo submachine gun was abandoned at the site, a weapon commonly improvised in West Bank workshops and employed in past attacks.
The strike has inflamed growing fears of violence spilling over from Gaza. At least 49 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian assailants since the Gaza war started, according to UN figures, while Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 900 Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accompanied National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to the scene, declared: "The war continues, in Jerusalem as well." The statement highlighted the expanding scope of the conflict, which has seen both militant attacks and escalating settler violence.
World leaders moved quickly. French President Emmanuel Macron decried the attack, calling for a halt to the "spiral of violence," and a political solution as the sole route to stability.
The Jerusalem attack was the deadliest within Israel since October 2024, when seven were killed in a Tel Aviv shooting. With each side digging in, concerns about escalating unrest in the West Bank and elsewhere continue to build.
