No fewer than three Israelis were killed and 16 others injured after two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a crowded bus stop in West Jerusalem, Israeli police say.
The assailants were shown on CCTV stepping out of a car on a highway and killing individuals standing on the sidewalk with a rifle and a handgun.
The shooters, who authorities said were from occupied East Jerusalem, were slain by off-duty troops and a civilian on the site.
Israel’s national security minister said they were “Hamas operatives.”
There was no immediate reaction from Hamas, which had only hours earlier agreed with Israel to extend a cease-fire in Gaza for a seventh day and allow another exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv as part of efforts to extend the halt in the devastating war, which was precipitated by Hamas’s lethal strike on Israel on October 7.
Blinken described the attack as a “reminder of the terrorism threat that Israel and Israelis face on a daily basis.”
At around 07:40 (05:40 GMT), Israeli police received reports of shootings at the Givat Shaul junction on the key highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“A car approached with two armed terrorists—one with an M16 rifle and the other with a handgun,” Jerusalem District Commander Doron Turgeman told reporters at the scene.
“At a bus stop, they opened fire at people who were waiting there,” he said. “The quick response of two soldiers and a civilian, who were close to the stop, neutralized the attackers.”
Officers searching the gunmen’s vehicle later discovered a substantial amount of ammo.
Moshe Hemed, a paramedic for Magen David Adom (MDA), hurried to the scene.
“I saw a number of casualties… Some were lying, and some were walking. Along with large numbers of MDA teams, we assessed and treated them,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we had to pronounce a 24-year-old female deceased and evacuate a further eight casualties in varying conditions to hospitals across the city.”
Police later confirmed that two more victims of the incident had died and that three more were in critical condition in the hospital.
The 24-year-old lady was identified as Livia Dickman, and the two others were killed as Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, 73, and Hana Ifergan, 67.
According to police, the attackers were two brothers in their 30s from the Sur Baher neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
