At least eight people were injured in gunshots near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, several of them seriously. The shots were fired in two different places, the Magen David Adom rescue service said on Sunday night. A Palestinian suspect has been arrested, police said. It is said to be a 27-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem who reported himself to the police several hours after the attack.
According to media reports, the shots were aimed at a bus in the old town, and the shots were also fired in a parking lot near David’s grave. According to a paramedic, believers from the Western Wall were on their way into the city on the bus. “According to a passer-by, a terrorist started firing indiscriminately at the bus,” she said Jerusalem Post a medic.
After the attack, the perpetrator initially managed to escape. The police then cordoned off the old town and used helicopters to search several Arab districts.
Newborn among the seriously injured
When the emergency services reached the scene of the incident, there was a great commotion. People ran away in a panic. According to the information, one of the injured was very pregnant, the unborn child had to be taken with an emergency caesarean section and was also seriously injured.
Israeli Prime Minister Jair Lapid said: Anyone who harms civilians will pay a price. A spokesman for the Palestinian organization Hamas, the ruling Palestinian organization in the Gaza Strip, called the attack a “natural reaction to the arrogance of the occupying soldiers and Zionist settlers and their daily crimes against our people, our country and our Islamic and Christian holy sites”. He spoke of Israel’s continued incursion into Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Temple Mount (Al-Haram al-Sharif) with the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. But it is also sacred to Jews because there used to be two Jewish temples there. The place is under Muslim administration while Israel is in charge of security. There is always tension between the two sides. Israel conquered the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians demand the area as part of a future state of their own.