Palestinian Attack in Central Israel Kills One Woman and Injures 16
Israeli police arrested two Palestinians for allegedly ramming cars into pedestrians on Monday, in an incident that killed one woman and injured at least 16 others.
Israel’s police said the two Palestinians had entered the country illegally from the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron and that they are treating the incident as a terrorist attack. The assailants allegedly used different vehicles to run over civilians along the main street of shops in Ra’anana, a town in central Israel. One victim also had stab wounds, Israeli medics said.
Israeli medics said they attended to 16 wounded people at the scene including at least seven children and minors, evacuating them to local hospitals. An elderly woman later died of her injuries, a hospital spokesperson said. Two more people were in a serious condition, according to medics.
Israel has tightened security in the West Bank since Oct. 7. Concerned over the threat of attacks, it has barred more than 100,000 Palestinian workers from entering Israel.
Palestinian assailants have mounted a series of attacks on Israeli police and civilians since the start of the conflict in Gaza, even as the country has been on heightened alert following a cross-border Hamas assault on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. In November, four people were killed in a shooting attack by Palestinian gunmen claimed by Hamas near Jerusalem.
Hamas called the attack in Ra’anana a “natural response” to the war in Gaza but didn’t take responsibility for the attack.
Over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, authorities in the enclave say. The figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since the war began, Hamas has called on Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to rise up against Israel and mount attacks. It wasn’t clear whether the Palestinians arrested on Monday were affiliated with any group.
Seven Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in the last 24 hours during raids by Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“The terror attack today reminds us that the enemy is trying to hurt us indiscriminately in every place in the state of Israel,” former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a resident of Ra’anana, said in a video statement from the scene of the attack and posted on X.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue the war in Gaza against Hamas, now in its 101st day, despite mounting international pressure to end the conflict.
Source » msn
