Israeli police said they have arrested two people after a car slammed into pedestrians in Jerusalem on Monday, lightly wounding three.
Footage of the incident taken by a CCTV camera and aired by Israeli media showed a car plowing into three ultra-Orthodox Jews, sending at least two flying over the dashboard.
Palestinians have carried out periodic attacks on Israeli cities and towns since the country’s war against Hamas began on Oct. 7. During that time, violence has surged in the West Bank.
Also Monday, Israel's chief of military intelligence resigned over the failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, the first senior official to do so.
Over the weekend, a funeral in the West Bank commemorated 14 Palestinians killed during an Israeli raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp, and several dozen people were killed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as one child was born an orphan.
The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly this month, raising fears of all-out war.
The war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, at least two-thirds of them children and women. It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction. Around 80% of the territory’s population have fled to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $26 billion aid package on Saturday that includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, which experts say is on the brink of famine, as well as billions for Israel. The U.S. Senate could pass the package as soon as Tuesday, and President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately
Currently:
— Israel's chief of military intelligence resigns, citing failure to prevent Oct. 7 attacks
— Israeli strikes on Rafah kill 22, mostly children
— A Palestinian baby in Gaza is born an orphan
— Iran’s supreme leader tacitly acknowledges that Tehran hit little in its attack on Israel
— Israel and Iran’s apparent strikes and counterstrikes give new insights into both militaries
— Israeli leaders criticize expected U.S. sanctions against military unit in West Bank
Here is the latest:
JERUSALEM — Israelis were set to begin celebrating Passover, a holiday meant to symbolize freedom, on Monday, against the backdrop of a brutal war in Gaza and the continued captivity of over 100 hostages in the strip.
Passover is a major Jewish holiday, celebrated over the course of a week, that commemorates the biblical story of the exodus of ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Jews will gather for a meal, called a “seder,” on Monday night to read the Passover story aloud.
In Israel, some prepared to leave chairs at the seder table empty to symbolize the captives remaining in Gaza.
Of some 250 hostages captured during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, roughly 130 remain in captivity. Efforts to strike a deal to secure their return have stalled, and Israeli officials say at least 30 are now dead.
Many Israelis also have friends or family members killed or wounded in the Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 across southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
“I can’t imagine celebrating Pesach, the freedom holiday, without my son,” said Dalit Shtivi, whose son Idan Shtivi is being held hostage in Gaza. “I’m begging there will be a deal.”
In Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim, families threw bread into small fires on the street and dunked dishes into cauldrons of boiling water. It’s typical for observant Jews to cleanse their homes of “chametz,” or grains, before the start of passover to commemorate the unleavened bread the Jews ate in their flight from Egypt.
JERUSALEM — Israeli police say they have arrested two suspects believed to have rammed a car into a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem Monday morning, lightly wounding three.
The police said the two suspects were found after fleeing the scene and hiding near a closed business.
The Monday attack was the latest to strike Israeli cities and towns since the war against Hamas broke out on Oct. 7. Palestinians have during that time carried out a number of attacks against Israelis, some of them deadly. During that time, violence has also surged in the West Bank.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli authorities said they had arrested a suspect in the killing of a 14-year-old Jewish West Bank settler.
The teen’s disappearance earlier this month sparked rampages by Israeli settlers in a number of Palestinian communities. At least one Palestinian man was killed, Palestinian health officials said, and dozens were injured in the rampages and in confrontations with the settlers.
A joint statement Monday by the Israeli internal security agency, Shin Bet, Israeli police and the military said Ahmed Dawabsheh, 21, was arrested in an overnight raid in the Palestinian village of Duma. Duma was one of the areas where the settlers rampaged after 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair’s disappearance.
The developments were the latest tensions roiling the West Bank, which has seen surging violence since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7.
JERUSALEM — Israeli police said a car slammed into pedestrians in Jerusalem on Monday, wounding three people lightly.
The three were injured when a car ran them over in the neighborhood of Romema, northeast of the city center.
Footage of the incident taken by a CCTV camera and aired by Israeli media showed a car plowing into three ultra-Orthodox Jews, sending at least two flying over the dashboard. Two people exit the car with a gun, and appear to attempt to shoot, but fumble with the gun before running out of the camera’s view.
Police said they were searching for the two attackers, who they said had exited the vehicle with a submachine gun and fled the scene.
Palestinians have carried out a number of attacks in Israeli cities and towns, some of them deadly, since the war against Hamas broke out on Oct. 7.
