JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli police say that a suspected car-ramming in east Jerusalem has killed two people and wounded five others.
The police did not immediately identify those killed, but medics had earlier said that two children, ages 5 and 6 were in critical condition and undergoing CPR.
There was no word on the identity or the condition of the suspected assailant, who was shot at the scene.
The apparent rampage on Friday marked the latest escalation during a period of heightened tensions in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
A suspected assailant rammed his car into several pedestrians in east Jerusalem on Friday, injuring at least six people, Israeli paramedics said, the latest incident as violence rises in the contested capital.
The alleged car-ramming took place at a bus stop in Ramot, a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. Tensions have soared in the Israeli-annexed eastern half of the city, following a Palestinian shooting attack on Jan. 27 that killed seven people in the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in over a decade.
The Israeli rescue service said its medics were treating six people, including two children in critical condition undergoing CPR. It said two men, ages 27 and 30, were unconscious and in serious condition, while another two people were in moderate condition, including a 40-year-old man. Police said that the suspected attacker was shot at the scene. There was no immediate word on his condition.
The Islamic militant groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, praised the suspected attack but did not immediately claim responsibility.
Police identified the ages of the injured children as 5 and 6. Footage from the scene showed police and paramedics swarming a mangled blue Mazda that had slammed into a bus stop. Bloodied bodies lay strewn along the way.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state.
Hostilities have escalated in east Jerusalem and the West Bank since Israel stepped up raids in the occupied territory last spring, following a series of deadly Palestinian attacks within Israel.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
