Two blasts have gone off near bus stops in Jerusalem, injuring at least 14 people in what police say are suspected attacks by Palestinians.
One of Tuesday’s blasts went off near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where commuters usually crowd waiting for buses.
The second went off in Ramot, a neighbourhood in the city’s north. Hospitals said they received about a dozen wounded, including two who were critically injured and two seriously.
The apparent attacks came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are high, following months of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people. There has been an uptick in recent weeks in Palestinian attacks.
The violence also comes as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding coalition talks after national elections and is likely to form what’s expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government.
Police said the twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and they closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the fist explosion went off.
“It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here, ” Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio. “I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”
Read the article by Alon Bernstein in The Canberra Times.