JERUSALEM // Two Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, on Tuesday.
The near-simultaneous attacks in Jerusalem killed one attacker and two Israelis, and wounded more than 10 people.
The attacks come after a month of violence since and amid fears that the region is on the cusp of a new round of heavy violence.
Authorities closed major highways leading in and out of Jerusalem, while prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of his security cabinet.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the country’s internal security minister, Gilad Erdan, was considering a number of immediate steps, including a closure on Arab neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem, where many of the attackers have come from, and making it easier to get gun licenses.
In the bus attack, police said two men, one carrying a gun and the other with a knife, boarded the vehicle and attacked passengers. They said a 60-year-old man was killed, as was one of the attackers. The second attacker was subdued by a crowd.
Elsewhere in Jerusalem, a Palestinian motorist rammed his vehicle into a crowded bus stop, then got out and began stabbing people. One Israeli was killed, police said.
The two Jerusalem attacks, coupled with a pair of stabbing attacks in Raanana, central Israel, that injured five, came in rapid succession. Emergency services said several of the wounded were in serious condition.
At the scene of one of the attacks, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat called on the government to seal off the West Bank and certain Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem to quell the wave of attacks.
Since the Jewish New Year last month, at least 27 Palestinians been killed by Israeli fire, including 11 identified by Israel as attackers. The rest were killed in clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli troops, where hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded. Seven Israelis have been killed in the same period.
The unrest began last month with clashes at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site and quickly spread across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The attacks come at a time of deep despair for the Palestinians. Peace talks broke down more than a year ago, and prospects for relaunching diplomatic efforts to end the conflict appear nil. After years of diplomatic deadlock, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has seen his popularity plunge.
The attackers, many of them teenagers, have had no affiliation with militant groups, and the seemingly random nature of the stabbings has made it difficult to predict or prevent them. The use of vehicles and firearms in Jerusalem on Tuesday, however, marked a more serious level of violence and bring back memories of the deadly attacks that plagued Israeli cities during last decade’s second Palestinian uprising.
* Associated Press