Palestinian terrorists have mowed down and stabbed a dozen civilians in Israel, killing an elderly woman and wounding another 17 people.
The two attackers carried out coordinated car rammings in central Israel on Monday as tensions soared over the more than three-month war in the Gaza Strip.
Police described the attack in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, as a terrorist attack and said two suspects had been arrested.
The pair are from Hebron, a city in the occupied West Bank, and entered Israel illegally despite being blacklisted for repeated illegal entry, police said.
Palestinian terrorists have shot a dozen civilians in Israel, killing an elderly woman and wounding another 17 people
Mahmoud Zidat, 44, an illegal worker from the Palestinian West Bank town of Bani Na’im, was accused of using three different cars to ram civilians.
His cousin, 25-year-old Ahmed Zidat from Bani Na’im, who police claimed was in the car with his uncle during the attack, fled the scene and was later arrested.
“They went together and in parallel to two different locations, took two cars and launched a series of ramming attacks,” Central District police chief Avi Biton said.
“This was a very serious terrorist attack.”
Police alleged one stabbed a woman and stole her car, ramming into pedestrians before losing control and crashing.
They then allegedly stole another car and continued to drive it into random people on the street.
Another victim, a 66-year-old man, was also seriously stabbed in the chaos.
Israeli security forces work the scene of a Palestinian car ramming and stabbing at a bus stop in Ra’anana, Israel
Mahmoud worked at a car wash in Raanana and Ahmed recently moved in and started looking for a job.
No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Israeli TV showed scattered personal items on the sidewalk and said several children were among the injured.
Three people were in a serious condition, including a 34-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, and fourteen others were less seriously injured, including six children.
Witnesses initially thought the attack was a car crash after the vehicle crashed into another vehicle and ran it over with water to help the occupants.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s national ambulance service, said paramedics encountered numerous victims upon arrival.
‘We immediately started providing medical care, including stopping bleeding, treating and giving medications. We have evacuated the injured for further treatment at hospitals,” said paramedic Eli Raymond.
Israeli security forces search for attackers near the scene of a deadly car ramming and stabbing attack at a bus stop in Ra’anana, Israel
Israeli forces entered the Palestinian West Bank town of Dura, near Hebron, where the terror suspects came, shortly after the attack.
It was not clear whether the raid was directly related to the terror attack.
One Palestinian man, Hassan Ibrahim Abu Sebaa, was killed and ten others were injured when Israeli Defense Forces troops opened fire.
The IDF said about a hundred local residents rioted when the soldiers entered the area and attacked them with concrete blocks and Molotov cocktails.
Videos from the scene claim that IDF soldiers kick a man who lay on the ground after he was allegedly shot, and that a man was marched away by soldiers holding a gun to his head.