Palestinian gunman injures 8 in Jerusalem nighttime shooting

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday, injuring eight Israelis in an attack, a week after violence flared up between Israel and militants in Gaza, police and medics said.

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.

US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides tweeted that US civilians were among the injured. An embassy spokesman did not disclose any other information or details.

The shooting took place while the bus was waiting in a parking lot near David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the ancient city walls. Israeli media identified the suspected attacker as a 26-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem.

Israeli police said troops were sent to the site to investigate the matter. Israeli security forces also penetrated the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan to pursue the suspected attacker.

Later on Sunday, police said the suspected attacker turned himself in. At a meeting of his cabinet on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the suspected attacker was a Jerusalem resident who operated 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 planes unleashed an offensive in the Gaza Strip targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group and beginning 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 intended 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 hundreds injured in the fighting that ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire. No Israeli was killed or seriously injured.

The Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, has remained on the sidelines.

A day after the ceasefire ended the worst fighting in Gaza in more than a year, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants and injured dozens in a firefight that broke out during an arrest raid on the city of Nablus on the West Bank.