Paramedics say at least 12 other people were injured in the morning attack, with six in “serious condition”
Six people have been killed in a shooting attack in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have said, as the Israeli military’s punishing assault on besieged Gaza rages.
Paramedics said at least 12 other people were injured in the Monday morning attack, with six in “serious condition” with gunshot wounds following the shooting at Ramot Junction, Israel’s paramedic service, Magen David Adom. Several others were “lightly injured by glass” and treated at the scene, Magen David Adom said.
Israeli police described the shooting as a suspected “terror attack”.
Police said two attackers were “neutralised” soon after the shooting began. A security officer and a civilian shot and killed the perpetrators of attack that killed five people in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli police confirmed.
The police said that perpetrators arrived in a vehicle and opened fire at a bus station.
Israeli forces have closed all checkpoints between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank following an attack that killed five people in occupied East Jerusalem, sources tell Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, after police said that the perpetrators had come from the occupied West Bank, Israeli Army Radio has reported that Israeli forces imposed a military cordon on four Palestinian villages in the Jerusalem governorate of the territory – Qatana, Biddu, Beit Inan, and Beit Duqu – and is conducting raids there.
The Israeli military said it had reinforced its forces in the wider Jerusalem area and was conducting a wide-ranging search for what it described as “accomplices” of the perpetrators of the shooting.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are preparing themselves to face collective punishment from Israel in retaliation for the attack, says a Palestinian journalist.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Aida refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Leila Warah said Palestinians were “very much on edge waiting to see what is going to happen”.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said, “Israeli authorities are saying the two perpetrators are from an area in the occupied West Bank that is just west of occupied East Jerusalem. They say the two worked in tandem in this attack, that two gunmen boarded a bus – witnesses say one of them was dressed as a ticket inspector – and opened fire.”
“This attack took place near an illegal settlement of Ramot, just north of West Jerusalem, and if you look at where the Green Line is on a map, it actually bleeds into occupied East Jerusalem. These settlements are deemed illegal under international law and are buildings and structures that infringe on the rights of Palestinians and destroy territorial continuity for a future Palestinian state,” she added.
“Israeli officials are now trying to wrap their heads around how exactly this happened, saying that they haven’t seen something like this happen in years, saying that the last shooting like this in the greater Jerusalem was back in November 2023,” Salhut said.
Meanwhile, Israel Hayom newspaper reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed judges that he would not attend his corruption trial session scheduled for Monday due to the security developments.
Both Netanyahu and Israel’s far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have visited the scene of the shooting.
Netanyahu said at the scene of the attack: “We are in an intense war against terror on several fronts. I want to send condolences to the families of the dead and to the wounded. A pursuit and encirclement of the villages from which the terrorists came is underway.”
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have not claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem shooting, but have expressed “congratulations” for the attack.
Hamas said in a statement that the shooting was “a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and the genocide it wages against our people” and that it sends a clear message that Israel’s plans to “occupy and destroy Gaza City and desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque will not pass without punishment”.
The group said Israel’s aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank “will not weaken the determination of our people and their resistance” and called for more armed attacks in occupied territory.
Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said in a short statement that the shooting was “a natural and legitimate response to the ongoing crimes of the Zionist enemy” in Palestinian territories.
The shooting attack was most likely to have originated from the West Bank, rather than from Hamas in Gaza, Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg said.
Speaking from Tel Aviv, Goldberg told Al Jazeera he “seriously” doubted it had been ordered by Hamas.
If Hamas had carried out the attack, then it would mean Hamas was “trying to step up its resistance to what is beginning to look like a superimposed attempt to end the war”, he said, referring to comments from the United States Donald Trump administration that it is working on a solution to the war in Gaza.
However, Israel has made some Palestinians feel that their only means of resistance is violence as Israel has done its utmost to ensure that they have no “sustainable model of politics”, according to Goldberg.
“Many Israelis ask where the Palestinian Nelson Mandela is at the moment, and the answer is either at a cemetery or in an Israeli prison. Israel has done everything it can to break any attempts on the part of the Palestinians to try and explore different paths, paths that are not violent like the ones we saw today,” he said, referring to the shooting attack.
Goldberg added that while Palestinians have also played a part in the failure of Palestinian politics, Israel is “by all means the stronger party” and bears most of the responsibility.
“Israel has done everything it can to break the Palestinian Authority, to arrest any semblance of a political leadership that might be amenable to a political process with Israel and to deny such a political process vehemently and repeatedly at all levels of the Israeli government,” he said
