JERUSALEM, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Two bombs exploded at bus stops on Jerusalem’s outskirts on Wednesday, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding not less than 14 different individuals in what seemed to be an attack by Palestinian militants, Israeli authorities stated.
Police blamed the preliminary blast, throughout morning rush hour, on an improvised bomb planted close to the town exit. The second – some half-hour later – hit a junction resulting in an outlying settlement.
“There has not been such a coordinated attack in Jerusalem for many years,” police spokesman Eli Levi informed Army Radio.
The gadgets had been hidden in luggage, full of nails and appeared to have been detonated remotely by cell phone, Kan Radio stated.
CCTV footage confirmed the second of the primary explosion with a sudden cloud of smoke billowing from the bus cease. The website, cordoned off by emergency companies, was strewn with particles.
Ambulance companies stated 12 individuals had been taken to hospital from the primary blast and three had been wounded in the second. A 16-year-old Canadian-Israeli nationwide succumbed to his accidents.
The United Nations, the European Union, United States and Canada condemned the assaults.
“Terrorism is a dead-end that accomplishes absolutely nothing,” the U.S. Embassy stated on Twitter.
Benjamin Netanyahu, now negotiating with allies from spiritual and right-wing events to kind a brand new authorities after elections, stated he would do all the pieces to revive safety.
[1/6] A broken bus is seen following an explosion at a bus cease in Jerusalem November 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
“We still have a battle against terror that has lifted its head again,” the veteran former prime minister informed reporters.
In Gaza, a spokesman for Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the Jerusalem explosions however stopped wanting claiming duty. Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua linked the blasts to “crimes conducted by the Occupation (Israel) and the settlers”.
The explosions, which echoed the bus bombings that had been a trademark of the Palestinian rebellion of 2000-05, comply with months of rising pressure in the occupied West Bank after Israel launched a crackdown in response to lethal Palestinian assaults in its cities.
The coordinated blasts seemed to be a step up from a string of principally Palestinian lone-wolf stabbing, capturing and car-ramming assaults this 12 months.
Ultra-nationalist Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of Netanyahu’s probably coalition companions, demanded powerful motion, saying safety forces ought to go “house to house in search of guns and restore our deterrence power.”
Separately, Palestinian gunmen late on Tuesday seized the physique of an Israeli Druze highschool scholar from a Palestinian hospital in the West Bank metropolis of Jenin following a automotive crash close by, {the teenager}’s uncle informed Reuters.
The Druze are an Arab group in Israel who serve in its armed forces. The youth’s father and a few Israeli officers stated the gunmen took him off life assist earlier than carrying him away. Reuters was not instantly in a position to verify his situation.
Their causes for the seizure had been unclear. But households of slain Palestinian militants whose stays are in Israeli custody known as for an change of corpses.
A diplomat supply informed Reuters the United Nations was mediating over the discharge of {the teenager}’s physique and Israeli navy stated it anticipated that might occur quickly.
Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Ali Sawafta in Ramallah Writing by James Mackenzie and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Kim Coghill, Robert Birsel, Gareth Jones and Mark Heinrich and Bernadette Baum
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
