THREE ISRAELIS KILLED IN PALESTINIAN ATTACKS
More than a dozen others were wounded in two separate attacks
At least three Israeli Jews were killed and more than a dozen wounded by Palestinian attackers in shooting and stabbing incidents in Jerusalem and Ra’anana on Tuesday, ominous signs of the escalating violence that has plagued Israel for weeks.
Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu met with senior security officials and announced that his government is working on a series of “aggressive steps” in response to the wave of attacks.
“We will use and not hesitate to use all means at our disposal to restore calm,” he told parliament. “I’m sure the steps we will take will let the other side know that terror doesn’t pay.”
In Jerusalem, two assailants opened fire and stabbed people on a bus in a city neighborhood, killing two men, Israeli police said.
Witnesses said the Palestinian attackers locked the doors of the bus to prevent passengers from escaping before police and a security guard killed one attacker and wounded the other.
“Both of the terrorists were already sitting, they didn’t look suspicious or anything. I sat down, in the back at the end ( of the bus), and just as the driver closed the doors and began to drive, one of the terrorists began to shoot at the man sitting in front of me,” bus rider Rubi Mehatvi told Ynet news site from his hospital bed.
“I hid, and tried to open the door but couldn’t. He took out a knife and began to stab ( someone) in the neck. The second terrorist got up and grabbed me, pushed me up against the window, began to beat me in the head, in the face, and in the back,” Mehatvi said.
Almost simultaneously, a driver
“We will use and not hesitate to use all means at our disposal to restore calm.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister
rammed his car into people waiting at a bus stop in Jerusalem, exited the vehicle and began stabbing the injured and others, killing a 40- year- old man, Israel’s Walla news site reported. The attacker was shot dead.
“I was waiting for the bus and suddenly saw a car approaching and slam right into the bus stop, and hit a man right in front of me,” Moshe Shmueli, who was wounded in the attack, told Walla.
There were also two stabbings in Ra’anana, a city of about 80,000 in central Israel, where one Israeli died and five more were injured. In one of the incidents, witnesses said a Palestinian attacker was chased by pedestrians as he fled, and was then hit by a car before the driver handed him over to the police.
In a separate incident near an Ikea store in Kiryat Ata in northern Israel, a Jewish Israeli man stabbed another Jew in a suspected failed revenge attack. Police said they concluded the man was hoping to stab an Arab in revenge for the recent violent attacks against Jews.