Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem, killing six people in what police described as "a terrorist attack," one of the deadliest in the city in the past few years.
Footage from a dashboard camera at the scene showed people fleeing from the vicinity of a bus stopped by the side of a road as shots rang out. Another video showed a bus's windscreen and windows pierced with bullet holes.
"Suddenly I hear the shots starting ... I felt like I was running for an eternity," Ester Lugasi, who was injured in the attack, told Israeli TV from hospital. "I thought I was going to die."
The ambulance service identified the five of the victims as a 50-year-old man, a woman in her fifties and three men in their thirties. It said 11 other people had suffered injuries, including six who were in a serious condition with gunshot wounds.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said later a sixth person had died and that the gunmen were Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Watch: People flee site of Jerusalem shooting
Palestinian militant group Hamas praised two Palestinian "resistance fighters" who it said had carried out the attack but it stopped short of claiming responsibility. Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, also praised the shooting.
Speaking at the scene of the attack, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were pursuing suspects who aided them.
Israeli police said two attackers arrived by car and opened fire at a bus stop at Ramot Junction. Several weapons, ammunition and a knife used by the attackers were recovered at the scene, police said.
"A security officer and a civilian at the scene responded immediately, returned fire, and neutralised the attackers," they said in a statement.
Reuters footage showed a heavy police presence in the Ramot area following the shooting. The ambulance service said a paramedic arriving at the scene reported that several victims were lying on the road and the sidewalk, some unconscious.
In a statement, President Michael D Higgins called the attack "unconscionable" and added it was "another example of how human life is not being respected".
"Such actions will not be of any help to any cause. Justice requires an approach that is respectful of human life," Mr Higgins said.
In October 2024, two Palestinians, one armed with a gun and the other armed with a knife, killed seven people in Tel Aviv.
In November 2023, two Palestinian gunmen killed three people at a Jerusalem bus stop. Israeli security services said that the attackers in the 2023 Jerusalem shooting were linked to Hamas.
The shooting was one of the deadliest incidents of its kind since the war in Gaza began after Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 64,368 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
