JERUSALEM – A gunman opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday, injuring eight Israelis in a suspected Palestinian attack that took place a week after violence flared up between Israel and militants in Gaza, police said. and medics.
Two of the victims were in serious condition, including a pregnant woman with abdominal injuries and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, according to Israeli hospitals treating them.
The shooting took place while the bus was waiting in a parking lot near the Western Wall, which is considered the holiest place for Jews to pray.
Israeli police said troops were sent to the site to investigate the matter. Israeli security forces also penetrated the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan to pursue the suspected attacker.
The attack in Jerusalem followed a tense week between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli planes unleashed an offensive in the Gaza Strip targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group and beginning three days of fierce cross-border fighting. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up to avenge the airstrikes, which killed two of its commanders and other militants. Israel said the attack was intended to thwart threats from 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 hundreds injured in the fighting, which ended with a Egypt-brokered ceasefire. No Israeli was killed or seriously injured.
The Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, has remained on the sidelines.
A day after the ceasefire ended the worst fighting in Gaza in more than a year, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants and dozens were injured in a firefight that broke out during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.