At least two people were killed Friday following a suspected “terrorist attack” at a small bus station in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malakhi, a hospital and police said.
“A terrorist arrived at a bus station, apparently in a vehicle, and shot several people, until he was neutralized by a civilian who was there. Six injured people were evacuated from the scene, some in “serious” condition, Israeli police said in a statement.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer on site saw heavily armed police officers and the remains of the attacker. According to rescuers, six people were injured and transferred to two hospitals. A spokeswoman for Kaplan Hospital told AFP that two of the people injured and transferred to the establishment had succumbed to their injuries.
National alert level raised
“Significant” police forces have been deployed in this small industrial town located between Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, added the Israeli police, who say they are looking for possible accomplices of the attacker. “We have raised the national alert level,” said Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtaï, who visited the scene of the attack, without providing further details on the identity of the attacker. .
Two stabbing attacks against the Israeli police and army took place on Sunday evening in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, during which the attackers were killed without causing any casualties among the police, according to the police and the ‘army.
These almost simultaneous incidents took place in a context of tensions fueled, in Israel and in the Palestinian territories, by the war underway for four months between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
