Israel police say suspected Palestinian “terrorist ramming attack” in Raanana leaves at least 13 wounded

Raanana, Israel — Israeli police said Monday a suspected car ramming attack injured at least 13 people in the central city of Raanana. Israeli media outlets said one woman injured in the attack had died of her wounds at a local hospital, but the fatality was not immediately confirmed by authorities. 

“A suspect in a stolen vehicle ran over a number of people, injuring 13,” the force said in a statement, with medics reporting one of them was in critical condition. 

Police later called it a “a multiple car-ramming attack” and said it involved two suspects who “stole vehicles and ran over a number of citizens in different places” in Raanana.

The national police chief of staff said on Israeli TV that two Palestinian suspects, both from the city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had been arrested following the incident in Raanana. Police earlier had said a suspect was taken into custody and the motive was being investigated.

Tension in the West Bank, the much larger of the two Palestinian territories, has soared since Israel launched its offensive against the Hamas rulers of the other, smaller enclave, the Gaza Strip. The war sparked by Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, has left close to 28,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Palestinians in the West Bank often hold protests in solidarity with Gaza’s embattled population, and clashes with Israeli security forces, who conduct raids frequently in the occupied territory, have been a regular occurrence since the war began.

Some hard-line residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been accused of harassing, attacking and stealing the land of Palestinians in the territory over the last 100 days of war.