Israel: Man opens fire at bus station, kills 1
Associated Press
JERUSALEM
An Arab attacker armed with a gun and a knife opened fire in a southern Israel bus station Sunday, police said, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding 10 people in one of the boldest attacks yet in a monthlong wave of violence.
The attack came as Israel further tightened security around the country, highlighted by the construction of a barrier separating Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. In a bid to halt the fighting, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days.
Israel has deployed thousands of police, backed up by troops, to maintain order following a spate of attacks, mostly stabbings, by Palestinian assailants. Those measures have so far failed to stop the violence.
In Sunday night’s attack, police said the Arab assailant entered the central bus station in the southern city of Beersheba and began shooting and stabbing people.
They said an Israeli soldier was killed, five police were wounded and five civilians were wounded to varying degrees.
Yoram Halevy, a police commander in southern Israel, told reporters that in addition to the knife and gun he entered with, the attacker also snatched a weapon from the soldier he killed.
The attacker, whose identity was not immediately known, was shot and killed.
A foreigner was shot by police during the attack after they apparently mistook him for an assailant.