A 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire in east Jerusalem today, wounding two Israelis, a day after another attacker killed seven outside a synagogue.
he shooting in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, near the historic Old City, wounded a father (47) and son (23), paramedics said.
Both were fully conscious and in moderate to serious condition in the hospital.
As police rushed to the scene, two passers-by with licensed weapons shot and overpowered the 13-year-old attacker, police said. Police confiscated his handgun and took the wounded teen to hospital.
Video showed police escorting a wounded teen, wearing nothing but underwear, away from the scene and onto a stretcher, his hands cuffed behind his back. Authorities taped off the street, emergency vehicles and security forces swarmed the area and helicopters whirled overhead.
“He waited to ambush civilians on the holy Sabbath day,” Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told the Associated Press, adding that the teenager opened fire on a group of five civilians.
Security footage showed the victims to be observant Jews, wearing skullcaps and tzitzit, or knotted ritual tassels.
Today’s events – on the eve of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in the region – raised the possibility of even greater conflagration in one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in several years.
On Friday, a Palestinian gunman killed at least seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, in a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move not internationally recognised.
The attacks pose a pivotal test for Israel’s new far-right government. Its firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has presented himself as an enforcer of law and order and grabbed headlines for his promises to take even stronger action against the Palestinians.
The Israeli army said it had deployed another battalion to the West Bank today, adding hundreds more troops to a presence already on heightened alert in the occupied territory.
In the Jenin refugee camp, the site of a deadly Israeli military raid on Thursday that fuelled the latest escalation, footage showed Palestinians dancing and cheering in celebration of the shooting on Saturday. Palestinian detainees who celebrated in prison after Friday’s attack were placed in solitary confinement, the Israeli prison service said.
