Israel: Assailant opens fire on bus station, soldier killed
|
Version 0 of 1. JERUSALEM — An Arab attacker armed with a gun and a knife opened fire in a bus station Sunday in southern Israel, police said, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding 10 people in one of the boldest attacks in a month-long wave of violence. The attack came as Israel further tightened security nationwide, highlighted by the construction of a barrier separating Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he would meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days. In Sunday night’s attack, police said, the Arab assailant entered the central bus station in the southern city of Beersheba and began shooting and stabbing people. They said an Israeli soldier was killed, five police officers were lightly wounded and five civilians were wounded to varying degrees. Yoram Halevy, a police commander, told reporters that the attacker also snatched a weapon from the soldier he killed. The attacker, whose identity was not known, was fatally shot. Meanwhile, police shot a foreigner during the attack after apparently mistaking him for an assailant. Israeli media said the foreigner was an Eritrean national living in Israel. The bus station attack was one of the most serious incidents amid near-daily bouts of violence that have hit Israel and the Palestinian territories in recent weeks. The unrest erupted in Jerusalem a month ago over tensions surrounding a Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims. It soon spread to Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and then to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. Israel has struggled to contain attacks by Palestinian assailants. Authorities have blocked roads and placed checkpoints at the entrances of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and enacted other security measures. On Sunday, Israeli police erected a barrier to separate the Jewish neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv from the adjacent Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber as part of the heightened security. A number of attackers have come from Jabel Mukaber. Over the past month, nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks. In that time, 41 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. The attacks have caused panic across Israel and raised fears that the region is on the cusp of a new round of heavy violence. The outbreak was fueled by rumors that Israel was plotting to take over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, a hilltop compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and home to al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. Israel has denied the allegation. |