At least three Israelis have been
killed and many injured in shooting and stabbing attacks in Jerusalem
and central Israel, Israeli police say.
Two were killed and 16 others were wounded when two assailants opened fire and stabbed passengers on a bus in Jerusalem.
Another died in a vehicle and knife attack elsewhere in the city.
Near-daily stabbings by Palestinians have left dozens of Israelis dead and wounded over the past fortnight.
Several attackers and at least 17 other Palestinians have been killed in the upsurge of violence.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene an emergency session of
the security cabinet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the surge in
violence.
The militant Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which
dominates the Gaza Strip, praised the "heroic operations in Jerusalem
and greets the heroes who carried them out".
Escalating tensions
In
the bus attack, the two assailants shot several passengers and stabbed
others after boarding the vehicle in East Talpiot, a district in East
Jerusalem also known as Armon HaNetziv, police said.
A
security guard was able to overpower one of them and shoot him, Israeli
media said. The second assailant then reportedly locked the bus doors
in an attempt to stop police from boarding it and passengers from
escaping, but police opened fire from outside and shot him.
Image copyrightIsrael PoliceImage caption
Police said officers shot two assailants at the scene of the bus attack in Jerusalem
Police said one of the attackers was killed and the other seriously wounded.
Minutes
later, a man ran over three people with his car at a bus station in the
Geula district of West Jerusalem. He then got out of the car stabbed
them with a knife, police said. The attacker, identified as a resident
of East Jerusalem, was shot by police. His condition is unclear.
At the scene: Orla Guerin, BBC News, East Jerusalem
The body of one attacker was still on the bus, his feet visible in the doorway. We saw police carry away a handgun.
One
Israeli woman was looking on in tears. "You can't be safe anywhere,"
she said, "we are worried all the time. Our children are trembling."
Other
Israeli residents hurled insults at a handful of Arab onlookers from
the neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, just across the street. "They are
cannibals," one man shouted. And there were shouts of "death to the
Arabs" and "close their villages".
Locals turned their anger towards Jerusalem's Mayor, Nir Barkat, who visited the scene. "Where is the security?" they asked.
As
police responded to this attack, another was unfolding in downtown
Jerusalem, where three Israelis were stabbed at a bus stop.
There is a real sense here of not knowing where and when the next attack will come.
Earlier
in the morning, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man, moderately
wounding him, at a bus stop in Raanana, a town north of Tel Aviv, police
said. The attacker was captured and reportedly beaten and seriously
injured by passers-by.
Not long afterwards, at least four other
people were wounded in another knife attack in Raanana, police said. The
assailant fled, but was then arrested by police.
Police identified both of the attackers in Raanana as residents of East Jerusalem.
Tensions
between Israelis and Palestinians have escalated since last month,
fuelled by clashes at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem, in the West
Bank, and across the Gaza border, as well as the wave of stabbings.
What is happening between Israelis and Palestinians?
There
has been a spate of stabbings of Israelis by Palestinians since early
October, and one apparent revenge stabbing by an Israeli. The attacks,
in which some Israelis have died, have struck in Jerusalem and
elsewhere, and in the occupied West Bank. Israel has tightened security
and clashed with rioting Palestinians, leading to deaths on the
Palestinian side. The violence has also spread to the border with Gaza.
What's behind the latest unrest?
After
a period of relative quiet, violence between the two communities has
spiralled since clashes erupted at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site in
mid-September. It was fuelled by rumours among Palestinians that Israel
was attempting to alter a long-standing religious arrangement governing
the site. Israel repeatedly dismissed the rumours as incitement. Soon
afterwards, two Israelis were shot dead by Palestinians in the West Bank
and the stabbing attacks began. Both Israel and the Palestinian
authorities have accused one another of doing nothing to protect each
other's communities.
Is this a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising?
There
have been two organised armed uprisings by Palestinians against Israeli
occupation, in the 1980s and early 2000s. With peace talks moribund,
some observers have questioned whether we are now seeing a third. The
stabbing attacks seem to be opportunistic and although they have been
praised by militant groups, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said
Palestinians are not interested in a further escalation.
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