ISRAEL: A Palestinian driver crashed his car into a crowd of people at a bus stop outside of Jerusalem, resulting in two deaths, one of which was a toddler, and numerous injuries.
The driver, who had been shot on the spot, was confirmed dead by a police official. He was named Hussain Qraqaa by an Israeli security officer. He was 31 years old and lived in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called the incident a terrorist act on Friday and directed that security personnel be increased.
“Everyone was lying out, thrown about, in really horrible condition,” said Ariel Ben-David, a volunteer medic with the United Hatzalah ambulance service, to Army Radio. We regret that one of the children did not make it.
Seven people were shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman outside a synagogue last month. At the time, security concerns in Israel were rising because of this.
In the last few months, Israeli soldiers have been doing almost daily operations in the occupied West Bank, where they have arrested hundreds of people and fought brutal gun battles with Palestinian terrorists.
So far this year, at least 42 Palestinians, including gunmen and civilians, have died.
Hamas’s government of the Gaza Strip called Friday’s attack a “heroic operation,” but it didn’t say who was behind it.
An armed bystander shot the attacker before a police officer came and also fired into the car, a man who claimed to have witnessed the attack from his automobile told Israel’s Channel 12 news.
Two people died: a 20-year-old male and his 6-year-old son. According to Channel 12 News, the event gravely harmed the six-year-old.
Social media videos surfaced of a blue automobile striking a post in front of a bus stop in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Middle Eastern war. Israel views the territory as falling inside the boundaries of Jerusalem.
When the region’s police forces’ hardline minister of security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, arrived at the scene, he was met by enraged crowds who surrounded him, some of whom were yelling, “Death to terrorists!”
He said that he had given the go-ahead for checkpoints to be set up all around Issawiya, where the alleged assailant originated in East Jerusalem.
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