Two killed, five injured in suspected car-ramming attack in East Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Feb 10 (EFE).- Two people, including a six-year-old boy, were killed and five were injured Friday in a suspected car-ramming attack in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli officials said, adding that the Palestinian assailant was shot dead at the scene by security forces.
The incident took place near the Jewish settlement of Ramot, where Israeli police said a “suspect” rammed into a group of people at a bus stop in a “terror attack.”
“As a result of the hit-and-run, there are two dead and five others wounded with varying degrees of injuries,” a police spokesman said, adding that security in the area had been reinforced.
The Israeli Magen David Adom medical emergency services confirmed that one of the deceased was a six-year-old boy, who died at the scene of the attack.
Shaare Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem said that one of the wounded, a man in his 20s, died in hospital despite attempts to resuscitate him. In addition, a hospital spokesman reported that one of the wounded is an eight-year-old boy in critical condition.
Local media identified the attacker as Hussein Qaraqe, a 31-year-old Palestinian resident of occupied East Jerusalem.
In response to the incident, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an investigation and the arrest of the attacker’s relatives and acquaintances. He also announced that his residence would be immediately demolished.
From the Gaza Strip, both the Islamist movement Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group have lauded the attack.
“The heroic operation in Jerusalem is the natural response to the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation against the Palestinian people,” Hamas said in a statement, in which it highlighted an Israeli raid on Sunday in the occupied West Bank in which five of its militiamen were killed by Israeli army fire.
Islamic Jihad, for its part, indicated that this attack shows that “the Palestinian people will continue to resist the occupation until its demise.”
Friday’s incident comes amid an escalation of violence in the region that has left 52 dead so far this year: 43 Palestinians – an average of more than one a day – and nine people on the Israeli side.
It comes after a Palestinian killed seven people in an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem on January 27, the deadliest attack on Israelis in more than a decade.
That attack also came in response to a bloody Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, in which 10 Palestinians, including militiamen and civilians, were killed. EFE
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