Eight wounded in shooting near Kotel after Shabbat

Five Americans were among the eight Jewish worshippers shot and wounded by a 26-year-old Palestinian gunman on a packed bus near the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday.

Two of the victims, including a pregnant woman and a man with wounds to his head and neck, were reportedly in a serious condition in hospital on Sunday evening, as Hamas praised the pre-dawn terror attack.

The pregnant woman’s baby was delivered by emergency caesarean section after she suffered abdominal wounds, according to the doctors treating her.

The American victims included an Orthodox family from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Local media reported that they had arrived in Israel on Wednesday. Yeshiva World News reported that the father of the Williamsburg family was badly injured.

The attack took place as the bus waiting in a car park near David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City walls. The perpetrator opened fire on the vehicle then fled the scene, heading for the district of Silwan. Within hours, after a large manhunt involving helicopters and police road closures, he handed himself in.

The bus driver, Daniel Kanievsky, told journalists that “everyone panicked” when the shooting started. Emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) said all victims were “fully conscious” and that most of the victims had been men.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the attacker was from East Jerusalem, had been acting alone, and was known to Israeli security services.

“Jerusalem is our capital city and a tourist centre for all religions,” he said. “There is one conclusion from this event, as from previous events: whoever harms the citizens of Israel will have nowhere to run. We will hunt them down.”

Last week, Israeli jets attacked sites in the Gaza Strip over three days, targeting Iran-backed terror group Islamic Jihad, before an Egyptian-brokered peace deal took effect. The raids killed 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, with 275 wounded.