Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a crowded bus stop at Ramot Junction in north Jerusalem on Monday morning, killing five people and injuring 12 others, Israeli authorities reported.

The attackers, who also boarded a bus and fired inside, were killed by a security officer and an armed civilian at the scene, police confirmed. The attack, one of the deadliest in Jerusalem since October 2024, occurred at a major intersection leading to Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. Footage captured the chaos as dozens fled the rush-hour assault, with broken glass and unconscious victims strewn across the road.

Magen David Adom paramedics treated six seriously injured victims, with others suffering minor injuries from glass shards. Israeli forces, suspecting additional threats, deployed hundreds of personnel to search for explosives and accomplices, while the military cordoned off Palestinian villages near Ramallah, including Qatana and al-Qubeiba, for raids.

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Hamas praised the attack as a “natural response” to Israeli actions but stopped short of claiming responsibility, unlike their October 2024 Tel Aviv attack that killed seven. Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera the attack likely originated from the West Bank, not Hamas in Gaza.

The ongoing Gaza war, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 assault, has fueled violence, with UN data reporting 49 Israeli and 968 Palestinian deaths in Israel and the West Bank since the conflict’s onset. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment as police and forensic teams secured the area. The attack underscores escalating tensions amid Israel’s military operations and settler violence in the region.

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