At least one person has been killed and 18 wounded in car-ramming attacks in central Israel, according to police and medical officials.
Israeli police said two Palestinian suspects from the occupied West Bank were arrested in connection with Monday’s attacks in the city of Raanana north of Tel Aviv.“Both suspects, Hebron residents, who entered Israel illegally, are already in police custody,” the police said on X.In an earlier statement, police said two suspects stole vehicles and ran over a number of residents in different locations.“A wounded woman who arrived in a critical condition after having been hit by a vehicle has died of her injuries despite our efforts to save her,” said a statement from Meir Medical Center near the site of the assaults.
At least 17 other people were being treated for injuries, including two seriously, medics from the Magen David Adom emergency service said.
Central district police chief Avi Biton told reporters in Raanana that the two “went out together and in parallel, to two different locations, took two cars and launched a series of rammings”.
Israeli TV showed scattered personal items on a pavement and said several children were among the injured.
Israeli media said some people may have also been stabbed in the incident in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, which came amid heightened security tensions over the more than three-month-old war with Hamas militants in Gaza.
“This was apparently a suspected terrorist ramming attack,” police said in a statement. It said the suspect was from the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
The injured were taken to hospitals for treatment, it said.
Citing witnesses in an earlier report, Army Radio said the incident may have been a car-jacking during which the stolen vehicle crashed.