Two gunmen opened fire at a Jerusalem bus stop Monday, killing six people and critically injuring seven others, emergency services said.
Police said the shooters, who had been “neutralized,” attacked at a bus stop, while some Israeli media reported they also boarded a crowded bus and opened fire inside.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he was conducting a "situation assessment" with the heads of his security establishment.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was a "painful and difficult" morning, adding that his "heart goes out to the bereaved families."
Hamas hailed the attack, which happened at an important intersection at the northern entrance to the city on a road that leads to Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, as "heroic" but did not claim responsibility.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, condemned the attack. "We stand with @Israel against this savagery," he posted on X.
At least one woman and four men were killed, a spokesperson for Magen David Adom, Israel's emergency service, said in a statement. Seven were seriously wounded. Several others sustained minor injuries from shattered glass.
Paramedics described a chaotic scene.
"We saw victims lying on the sides of the road and on the sidewalk near the bus stop, some unconscious," paramedic Nadav Taieb said in a statement.
"There was extensive destruction, broken glass on the ground, and a chaotic scene."
Israeli police said the victims were waiting at the bus stop when the gunmen open fire. A soldier and several civilians "engaged the attackers and returned fire," police said in a statement.
The attackers were "neutralized by an IDF soldier from the Hashmonaim Brigade and by an additional civilian," the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said later.
“I ordered a full closure of the area from which the terrorists came from," Zamir said. “We will continue with a determined and ongoing operational and intelligence effort, we will pursue terror cells everywhere, and we will thwart terrorist infrastructure and its organizers.”
There has been a surge in violence in both Israel and the occupied West Bank since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, six people died in Gaza from famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, health officials in the enclave said in an update Monday, bringing the death toll due to malnutrition in Gaza to 393, including 140 children. The world’s leading body on hunger declared famine in Gaza last month for the first time.
The Israeli military last week ordered Gaza city residents to evacuate as it pressed ahead with an offensive to seize control of the area.
