- Explosives were used in two explosions at bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
- One explosion killed a 16-year-old boy and injured 14 others, including an Israeli-Canadian religious student.
- Israel’s interior minister called it “an attack we haven’t seen in a long time”.
Israeli police report that two alleged bombings at bus stops in Jerusalem resulted in the death of a 16-year-old kid and the injuries of 14 additional individuals.
People were leaving for work when the explosions occurred at two busy intersections on the outskirts of the city.
According to Israeli media, Aryeh Shtsupak, an Israeli-Canadian religious student, was the teen who passed away.
At one point, Israel’s interior minister remarked that this was “an attack we haven’t seen in a long time.”
In a year of increasing violence, Israelis have been the target of Palestinian stabbings and stabbing attacks with knives and guns, and Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank have resulted in the deaths of Palestinian militants and civilians.
One of the most important attacks of its sort in years, explosives were used again in Jerusalem.
A group has not yet claimed responsibility for the explosions. However, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two violent Palestinian organisations, praised those who carried out the “operation.”
Just after 07:00 (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday, the first explosion took place near Givat Shaul, close to the major entry to Jerusalem.
Israeli doctors said that 12 persons were injured in the explosion, including the teenage kid who eventually passed away at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
A second blast occurred in Ramot Junction, another city entry, about 30 minutes later. Three people suffered minor injuries as a result.
Debris covered the pavement where the first explosion occurred. The area was cordoned off by masked Israeli security personnel, and bits of a severely broken bicycle were placed in forensics bags.
One resident of the adjacent Jewish ultra-Orthodox neighborhood told the media that he was awakened by the shaking of his building. It seems that many of the people waiting for buses were locals.
A minor demonstration was also going on, with young Israeli males holding a sign that demanded “revenge.”
Deputy Commissioner Sigal Bar Zvi claimed the bombs were manufactured with “high quality” explosives and hidden in a bush and behind a wall at bus stops.
She stated that police suspect an organized group planned the strikes.
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Israeli media said the explosives had nails and were likely remotely detonated.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said the attacks were unusual.
Officers searched “all potentially hazardous sites, including bus stops, buses, and crowded areas” for more devices and “tried to apprehend the terrorists.”
The second Palestinian revolt 20 years ago featured bombings. In 2016, Jerusalem had none.
Outgoing PM Yair Lapid met with security officers.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “This terror attack will not weaken us or make us doubt our right to a calm and safe life in Israel, including in Jerusalem.”
Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are negotiating with far-right and religious groups to establish a coalition government. Security-focused elections gave them a majority in parliament.
“We still have a fight with cruel terror, which raise its head again,” Mr Netanyahu warned as he visited survivors of the attacks in hospital. “We will do anything to bring back the security for the citizens of all Israel as soon as possible.”
“Even if it’s in the West Bank, lay siege to them and go from house to house in search of guns and restore our deterrence power,” he said.
Canada’s ambassador to Israel, Lisa Stadelbauer, said she was “heartbroken to confirm that a young Canadian lost his life in this morning’s reprehensible terror attack in Jerusalem”.
“Our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to others wounded in this attack. Canada continues to condemn all forms of terror.”
The US ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, tweeted that an 18-year-old Israeli-American named Naomi Pilichowski was among those wounded in what he called the “heinous terrorist attack”. Her father, the educator and author Rabbi Uri Pilichowski, said she had suffered a small cut.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the US condemned “unequivocally the acts of terror” in Jerusalem and that it had “offered all appropriate assistance to the government of Israel as it investigates the attack and works to being the perpetrators to justice”.
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