Border cop killed, 10 wounded in terror shooting attack at Beersheba central bus station
A Border Police officer was killed and at least 10 others were wounded when a terrorist opened fire in the Beersheba bus station on Sunday afternoon.
The victim was identified as Sgt. Shira Suslik, 19, a Border Police officer from Beersheba. She was killed when a gunman stormed into a McDonald’s in the southern city’s central bus station and opened fire on those inside.
The shooter, who was said to be killed at the scene by IDF soldiers, was identified as Ahmad al-Uqbi, 29, an Israeli citizen from the unrecognized Bedouin village of Uqbi, near Hura. He is said to have a prior criminal record.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said that 10 people were wounded in the attack and taken for treatment to the Soroka Medical Center, including a woman in serious condition and four men in moderate condition, all of whom sustained gunshot wounds.
Another five were listed in good condition after being hit by glass shards or blunt trauma, while three others were treated for acute anxiety, MDA added.
Police said they were investigating whether the attack involved both stabbing and gunfire by the terrorist.
In November 2023, Suslik posted on Instagram about celebrating her 19th birthday in the shadow of war, writing that the situation “gives even more meaning to the privilege I have to celebrate life in uniform, just over a month after kids my age were killed in battle for the state in the same uniform.”
In a statement, the Israel Police said she is survived by her parents and three siblings.
Tarin Yaakobov, the manager of the McDonald’s branch, told Ynet that “we heard gunshots and then we saw the terrorist spraying gunfire with his weapon. He shattered all the glass [windows]. We closed the door of the freezer and hid inside. We held the door closed so he couldn’t enter, and 15 minutes later we went back out.”
Boris Mento, a paramedic with MDA, said there was “a lot of chaos and commotion and some of the wounded had fled into other stores” inside the bus station. The first responders treated them at the scene to stop the bleeding before taking them to the city’s local hospital, he added.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, al-Uqbi is a relative of Muhanad al-Uqbi, from the same Bedouin town, who carried out a deadly 2015 terror shooting inside the Beersheba central bus station.
Following the attack, Transportation Minister Miri Regev said the families of terrorists should be deported: “The time has come for a deterrent punishment that prevents attacks on Israeli territory,” she tweeted.
Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman also tweeted a message in favor of deporting the family members of terrorists, noting that his faction had put forward such a bill earlier this year that passed an initial reading but did not advance further. He accused the government of “wasting time as we pay the price for it in human life.”
“I call on the members of the government and the Knesset speaker to hold a special session of the Knesset plenum and to pass [the bill] this week,” he added. “The blood of our brothers and sisters is not [spilled] in vain.”
The leader of the Arab Islamist Ra’am party, MK Mansour Abbas, condemned the attack, writing that “today a heinous crime was committed in Beersheba against innocent civilians. We condemn the attack, especially since the perpetrator is an Arab citizen from the Bedouin community in the Negev.”
“This is not the way of Arab citizens who have shown civic, moral and legal commitment and abhorred any type of violence, and rejected any attempt to be dragged into taking part in acts of political violence,” he added.
Sunday’s attack came on the eve of the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 mass onslaught against southern Israel, the worst terror attack in Israel’s history, and a few days after a deadly shooting attack in Jaffa in which two Palestinian terrorists from Hebron opened fire at a light rail stop, killing seven people.
Source » timesofisrael.com
