3 killed, over 20 injured as terror attacks rock Jerusalem, Ra’anana
“Fatal attacks in Makor Baruch, Armon Hanatziv neighborhoods”
Two separate attacks hit Jerusalem in a matter of minutes Tuesday morning, when two Arab men attempted to stab passengers on a bus before being shot and a car rammed into a group of people in the center of the capital.
One person was killed and another wounded as a driver rammed into a crowd on Malchei Israel Street in the Makor Baruch neighborhood in the center of the city. The attacker reportedly stepped out of the crashed vehicle and attempted to stab the wounded. He was subdued by police, but was not killed.
In a separate incident minutes earlier, two male passengers were killed — a 60-year-old who died at the scene, and a 45-year-old who died in the hospital — and three others suffered gunshot wounds in a combined shooting and stabbing attack on Egged bus 78 in the neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv in southern Jerusalem.
Two assailants were involved in the Armon Hanatziv attack, and were shot and subdued by police. One terrorist was said to have been killed, and the other was caught by police.
Some 15 people were said to have been injured in the attack.
In Ra’anana, a man stabbed four people with a knife on Jerusalem Boulevard. One was in serious condition with stab wounds to the upper body. The three other victims were lightly injured.
The attacker was arrested.
The attacks follows just hours after another stabbing attack in Ra’anana, in which a man was lightly injured when stabbed while standing at a bus stop on the central Ahuza thoroughfare in the city.
The victim, 32, suffered light wounds to his upper body in the incident, a spokesperson for the Magen David Adom rescue service said.
The attacker was taken into custody with serious injuries after being beaten by passersby to stop the attack, police and MDA officials said.
Police confirmed he had not been shot.
According to an initial police investigation, the attacker, a 22-year-old East Jerusalem resident, approached a man at a bus stop and stabbed him. Passersby pounced on the attacker, subduing him until police arrived.
The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway was closed at approximately 10:40 a.m. due to a police operation reportedly intended to apprehend the man who drove the first Ra’anana attacker to the city.
Another major route into the capital, Route 443, was closed as well, but was re-opened in the eastward direction a short while later.
A reported stabbing Tuesday in central Holon was determined to be a criminal matter and not a terror attack.