Two of the victims were in serious condition, including a pregnant woman with abdominal wounds and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, according to Israeli hospitals treating them. The US ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, tweeted that US citizens were among the injured. An embassy spokesman did not disclose any other information or details. The shooting happened as the bus waited in a parking lot near David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City walls. Israeli media identified the suspected attacker as a 26-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem. Israeli police said forces were sent to the scene to investigate. Israeli security forces also pushed into the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in pursuit of the suspected attacker. Crime scene investigators are working at the site of the attack near the Western Wall, which is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray. (Maya Alleruzzo/The Associated Press) Later Sunday, police said the suspected gunman turned himself in. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the suspected attacker was a Jerusalem resident who was acting alone during the shooting and had previously been arrested by Israel.
Fighting broke out last week
The attack in Jerusalem followed a tense week between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Last weekend, Israeli warplanes launched an attack on the Gaza Strip targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group, sparking three days of fierce cross-border fighting. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the resurgence in retaliation for the airstrikes, which killed two of its commanders and other fighters. Israel said the attack was intended to prevent the group from threatening to respond to the arrest of one of its officials in the occupied West Bank. Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed and several hundred wounded in the fighting, which ended with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. No Israelis were killed or seriously injured. The Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, remained on the sidelines. A day after a ceasefire halted the worst round of clashes in Gaza in more than a year, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
