A firearms attack on a bus in Jerusalem has caused six dead on the morning of this Monday, including a young Spanish, and several injured in serious condition, according to the star of David Roja de Israel, the National Emergency and Medical Assistance Service. The two assailants have been, according to a statement from police forces, which point to a terrorist attack.
The deceased Spanish has been identified as Yaakov Pinto, 25, a native of Melilla and resident in Israel. A statement from the Spanish Foreign Ministry has confirmed his death and condemned “sharply the terrorist attack in Jerusalem east,” reports Miguel González.
The young Melillense, who had just married, has died in the same place of the attack along with two other thirties and a male in the fifty. The other two victims have later died in hospitals in the city.
The aggression took place inside a public bus, in which the two men rose in a stop in the vicinity of Ramot, an illegal Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem. Israel’s security authorities have indicated that assailants were Palestinian citizens of the West Bank. Specifically, it is believed that they were originally from municipalities near Ramala, where there are already information about the beginning of raids in search of information or accomplices that have been able to enable the attack.
It is the greatest attack on these characteristics, when only two months had passed since the beginning of the Gaza War. From that moment on, the Israeli authorities further restricted the crosses between the Israeli territory and the occupied West Bank, allowing traffic only to the Palestinians who have authorization of the Israel Army. That the assailants have managed to overcome these militarized barriers is now one of the biggest concerns of the authorities.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamín Netanyahu, has immediately met with the country’s security authorities to “evaluate the situation,” as reported in a statement. Shortly after, the chief of the Executive and Itamar Ben Gvir, the ultra -rightist Minister of Israeli National Security, have been directed to the place of the shooting. Netanyahu was summoned Monday morning to the trial that follows against him for several corruption positions.
“A powerful war against terrorism is getting rid of all fronts,” said Israeli prime minister from the place of the attack. He also said that both the army and the country’s intelligence agencies had recently frustrated “hundreds of attacks” like this. “But unfortunately, no [han sido capaces de ello] this morning”.
Some members of the Israeli government have demanded on Monday the deportation of the families of the assailants, although they reside in occupied territory. “We have to act with an iron hand,” said Netanyahu’s partner in the Likud party and a member of the security cabinet that makes war decisions. “We must quickly implement the terrorist families deportation law [aprobada en Israel el año pasado]which will dissuade the future murderers and eradicate the crop broths from which they emerge. ”
The attack is produced in the middle of the resurgence of the Israeli offensive in the strip, where Israel is demolishing residential buildings in recent days, in what is a new pressure tactic to expel the million of Gazatis that concentrate in Gaza City. Although the United States now tries to give a new boost to negotiations to reach a high fire that ends with the offensive in the enclave, the sensation prevailing in recent weeks has been of stagnation and diplomatic inactivity.
Israel continued that tactic on Monday, with the demolition with prior notice of the 12-story tower. The Palestinian Human Rights Center (PHRC), an outstanding group that promotes accountability for the crimes that Israel commits on the Palestinian population, has warned in a statement that this tower welcomed medical clinics, sports facilities or business offices, in addition to hosting its main headquarters.
The group, to which the US punished days ago with sanctions for their collaboration with the International Criminal Court in cases that investigate alleged illegal actions of Israel in the strip, has regretted that the Israeli troops have also destroyed during this offensive their offices in Jabalia (North) and Khan Young (South).
The United Nations Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has denounced the demolition in a statement and has warned: “Destroying everything that is above the surface is not a war, but the deliberate creation of the conditions to destroy a group. That is, a genocide.”
As reported by the Ministry of Health of Gaza on Monday, the set of Israeli actions in the strip caused 67 fatal victims through armed actions and another six with the hunger caused by the Israeli block, which is maintained almost total.
The greatest attack on civilian population in Jerusalem since 2023 also agrees over time with the largest wave of forced displacements in a long time in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. In what the Israeli army has presented as an operation against armed groups, the troops have expelled 40,000 residents from their homes using mass destruction tactics similar to those used in Gaza.
The actions of the Army and Israeli settlers have also caused the death of more than a thousand Palestinians in the West Bank, including more than 200 children, from the attacks of October 7, 2023, according to UN data.
It is unknown if the authors of the shooting against the bus were affiliated with some Palestinian armed group. Hamas has issued a statement immediately after the attack in which the attack has described as “a heroic operation.” “We affirm that this operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation [en referencia a Israel] Already the extermination war that is carrying out against our people, ”said the militia in a statement, in which he calls the Palestinians of the West Bank to“ climb the confrontation ”against the soldiers and against the Israeli settlers. The Islamic jihad, another armed militia with presence in the strip, has published another statement in the same terms.
Armed civilians
Different Israeli media collect that an Israeli soldier who was in the place of the events and an Israeli civilian who was armed are the ones who have dejected the assailants. In Israel, an important part of Citizens carries out their daily activities while they are armed. This circumstance was even more normalized after the attacks that Hamas launched against Israel on October 7, 2023. In Israel, it is common to see civilians who feel on a terrace or go to the library
Often, when it identifies the origin of the Palestinian assailants who launch or plan attacks against Israel, the Israeli army usually isolate their municipalities of origin, applying what human rights organizations denounce as a collective punishment. These operations usually include arrests, sometimes violent, against relatives and neighbors, that the suspect is in jail or has been dejected.
Netanyahu has clarified that the security forces are already “chasing and surrounding the villages where the terrorists came.” Shortly after, the Army Chief, Eyal Zamir, has declared in a statement that the army has “locked” the area where the “terrorists” come, where the troops would also have practiced some arrests. The Israel intelligence agency has also communicated the arrest of a man in Jerusalem suspected of having transferred the assailants to the scene.
“The bus was full,” said a survivor in statements to the Israeli television channel chain 12: “The door has opened and the terrorists have risen. It has been terrible.” The woman, who was near the back door at the time of the event, has managed to escape and hide under a nearby vehicle until the assailants have been dejected. “There have been shots beyond the imaginable. I can’t believe it is here.”
