Combined car ramming-shooting attack injures Palestinian bystander

Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian bystander was seriously injured when two Palestinian residents of eastern Jerusalem allegedly tried to run over and then shoot police officers and civilians at a Jerusalem light rail stop.

The attack took place on Wednesday morning at a train stop near the Damascus Gate outside the Old City of Jerusalem.

The attackers were shot dead in the vehicle during a shoot out with police. They were later identified as Abd al-Malik Abu Kharub, 19, and Muhammad Jamal Al-Kaluti, 21, from from Kafr Aqab in eastern Jerusalem.

They used a sawed-off machine gun to fire on the lightrail stop and then to shoot at the police who pursued them.

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The Palestinian victim, about 50, from Beit Hanina in eastern Jerusalem, was caught in the cross-fire between the attackers and police. He was taken to  Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus with a gunshot wound to the head.

Prior to the attack,  gunmen fired on a crowded public bus in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. No one was injured in the attack. It is believed to be the same gunmen, since the car they were driving was identified in both attacks.

Also on Wednesday morning, a Palestinian man tried to stab Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint close to the Palestinian village of Salfit near the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. The would-be assailant was shot dead by soldiers during the attempted attack.

The incidents come a day after three terror attacks in Jerusalem and central Israel that left an American tourist dead and at least 12 others injured.

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