Six-year-old dies after driver ploughs into people waiting at bus stop
A six-year-old child has been killed after a driver rammed into a crowd waiting at a bus stop in Jerusalem.
The alleged car-ramming took place at a bus stop in Ramot, a Jewish settlement in the east of the city.
Israeli police confirmed there had been two fatalities, including a six-year-old boy and a man in his 20s.
Medics earlier said two children, aged five and six, were in critical condition and undergoing CPR.
The Israeli rescue service earlier said its medics were treating an additional four people. These included two men, aged 27 and 30, who were unconscious and in serious condition, while another two people were in a more moderate condition.
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Police said that the suspected attacker was "neutralised" at the scene by an off-duty cop. There was no immediate word on his condition.
Local media identified him as Hossein Karaka, 31, who lives in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Isawiya.
Within minutes of the incident, Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu called for Israeli security forces to seal and demolish his home - a deterrent being used more and more often in recent years.
Israeli emergency responders gather at the site of a reported ramming attack in Jerusalem on February 10 (AFP via Getty Images)He said in a statement: "I conducted a security situation assessment and ordered security forces reinforced, arrests made and to act immediately to seal the terrorist's house and demolish it.
"Our answer to terrorism is to strike it with all our might and deepen our grip on our country even more."
Tensions have soared in the Israeli-annexed eastern half of the city, following a Palestinian shooting on Jan. 27 that killed seven people in the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in over a decade.
The Islamic militant groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, praised the suspected attack but did not immediately claim responsibility.
A number of the victims are in critical condition, paramedics said (AFP via Getty Images)Footage from the scene showed police and paramedics swarming a mangled blue Mazda that had slammed into a bus stop. Bloodied bodies lay strewn along the way.
Shraga Rosenthal, a medic for Magen David Adom (Israel's national rescue service), said the ramming was "shocking" and a "very serious incident", adding that the young children were "unconscious and with severe multi-system injuries.
She added that both children needed CPR due to the extent of their injuries.
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Head of ZAKA rescue Dovi Weisenstern told the Jerusalem Post: "This is a very difficult scene, a terrorist who violently rammed into a bus station where there were many families."
People gather at the scene today (AFP via Getty Images)She recalled hearing "cries for help from all sides", and confirmed the "terrorist" had been "neutralised and eliminated on the spot".
Another MDA medic and eyewitness Lishi Shemesh recalled what he saw as he passed the scene.
He said: “I was in the car with my wife and children and I noticed a car driving fast to the bus stop and running over the people standing at the station. I stopped on the side and immediately ran towards the injured.
"A security guard neutralized and eliminated the terrorist. The sight was shocking, we saw casualties including 6 and 8 year old children lying unconscious.
"We started to do an initial screening of the victims and give them life-saving treatment. Immediately, large MDA forces arrived on the scene and continued the medical treatment and evacuated to the hospitals.
Police said today's bloodshed came from a "suspected ramming attack" (AFP via Getty Images)"I joined one of the ambulances and we evacuated a 26-year-old man in serious condition with a head injury to Shaare Zedek Hospital.”
It's the latest in a series of bloody incidents as violence rises in the contested capital.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as a capital of their future state.
Hostilities have escalated in east Jerusalem and the West Bank since Israel stepped up raids in the occupied territory last spring, following a series of deadly Palestinian attacks within Israel.
Both kids needed CPR due to their injuries (AFP via Getty Images)Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
So far this year, 43 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press.
Last week, Israel's hardline right-wing national security minister said the way of dealing with the surge in attacks would be to send terrorists to the electric chair.
Itamar Ben-Gvir said at a meeting of his Otzma Yehudit party: "Anyone who murders, harms and slaughters civilians should be sent to the electric chair."
At the end of January, Israeli forces carried out one of its deadliest raids in decades on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, killing 10 residents and pushing the death toll of Palestinians in January to 35.
The next day, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem in the worst such attack in recent memory. He had no known links to militant groups.
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