Thirteen people were injured, including one critically, in a terrorist car-ramming attack at a bus stop near the Karkur Junction, east of Caesarea, according to police and medical officials.
Eli Bin, director-general of the Magen David Adom emergency response group, said that paramedics treated casualties with injuries of varying degrees, including two seriously wounded people. The victim that sustained critical wounds is a 17-year-old girl, MDA confirmed.
Israel Police spokesperson Aryeh Doron told the Channel 12 channel that “after carrying out the car-ramming at the bus stop, the terrorist drove another few hundred meters, hitting an officer and his car.” He was “eliminated” at the scene shortly after the incident, Doron added.
Israeli Police Commissioner Daniel Levy arrived at the scene of the attack.
The terrorist was subsequently identified by authorities as a 53-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin area in nearby northern Samaria who was illegally residing in the Jewish state while married to an Arab citizen of Israel.
Magen David Adom paramedic Avi Cohen said, “We arrived at a complex scene where there was a lot of commotion after a vehicle hit several pedestrians.
“We immediately began providing medical treatment to all the injured, which included stopping bleeding and applying bandages, loading them unto ambulances and mobile intensive care units and quickly evacuating them to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera,” Cohen added.
The Hamas terrorist organization hailed the attack, saying in an official statement that the vehicular assault was a “natural, heroic response to the brutal aggression and ongoing crimes” committed by Jerusalem.
The car-ramming at the Karkur Junction comes a week after explosives were discovered on five buses in the cities of Bat Yam and Holon, south of Tel Aviv, on Feb. 20, which authorities called “an attempt to perpetrate a series of terrorist attacks with mass casualties.” No one was wounded by those explosives.
