Jerusalem attack: Americans among the wounded
Israeli police crime scene investigators work at the scene of a shooting attack that wounded several Israelis near the Old City of Jerusalem, early Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022. Israeli police and medics say a gunman opened fire at a bus in a suspected Palestinian attack that came a week after violence flared up between Israel and militants in Gaza. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo)
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JERUSALEM (AP/NewsNation) — A Palestinian gunman opened fire at a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday, wounding at least eight, including at least five Americans, in an attack that came a week after violence flared up between Israel and militants in Gaza, police and medics said.
A Brooklyn family was among those injured in the attack, NewsNation affiliate WPIX reported. Shia Hersh Glick was shot in the neck protecting his wife and his son, who was shot in the arm, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The wife was injured but is not critical. The elder Glick was on a respirator, according to Schumer.
“He was very brave. He bent down over his family to protect them,” Schumer said Sunday at an unrelated news conference. “We are all hoping and praying for the families that were shot in Israel. It hits so close to home.”
The U.S. State Department condemned the attack, in which it said at least five Americans were wounded.
Two of the victims were in serious condition, including a pregnant woman with abdominal injuries and a man with gunshot wounds to the head and neck, according to Israeli hospitals treating them. It was unclear whether those victims were Israeli or American.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted she was “horrified by the terror attack in Jerusalem.“
Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, confirmed to NewsNation that Shia Glick, his wife, son and daughter were shot. He said the family’s community is angered by the attack.
“Is there any words to describe the pain, to describe the anger in the community? That innocent people are targets for terrorist attacks?” Niederman said. “There’s no measure of words that could describe what’s going on.”
The shooting happened as the bus waited in a parking lot near the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. Israeli media identified the suspected attacker as a 26-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem.
Israeli police said forces were dispatched to the scene to investigate. Israeli security forces also pushed into the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan pursuing the suspected attacker.
Later on Sunday, police said the suspected attacker turned himself in. Speaking at a meeting of his Cabinet Sunday, Israeli Prime Mnister Yair Lapid said the suspected attacker was a resident of Jerusalem who was operating alone during the shooting and who had previously been arrested by Israel.
The attack in Jerusalem followed a tense week between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last weekend, Israeli aircraft unleashed an offensive in the Gaza Strip targeting the militant group Islamic Jihad and setting off three days of fierce cross-border fighting. Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up to avenge the airstrikes, which killed two of its commanders and other militants. Israel said the attack was meant to thwart threats from the group to respond to the arrest of one of its officials in the occupied West Bank.
Forty-nine Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, were killed, and several hundred were injured in the fighting, which ended with an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire. No Israeli was killed or seriously injured.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, stayed on the sidelines.
A day after the cease-fire halted the worst round of Gaza fighting in more than a year, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
NewsNation contributed to this report.
