Truck slammed into bus stop near Tel Aviv killing 1, injuring dozens

A truck slammed into a bus stop near Tel Aviv on Sunday as Israelis were returning to work after a weeklong holiday killing at least one person and injuring more than 30.

The truck slammed into a bus stop in the city of Ramat Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, leaving some people stuck underneath vehicles. About 35 people were wounded, according to first responders.

The bus stop, which is close to a central highway junction, is near Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters and a military base.

The circumstances of the crash remain unknown; however, Asi Aharoni, an Israeli police spokesperson, told reporters that authorities are treating it as a terror attack. He said the attacker had been “neutralized” without saying if the assailant was dead, and that police are working with Israel’s internal security agency to determine the person’s identity.

Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the suspected attack but did not claim it.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said six of the wounded were in serious condition. The Ichilov Medical Center reported that one person had died.

Ronit Glaser, with Magen David Adom, said in a video shared on X that they received a call of a “mass casualty event” near Glilot Junction. She described a chaotic scene as first responders worked to treat the people injured and take them to the hospital.

Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks over the years. Tensions have soared since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, as Israel has carried out regular military raids into the occupied West Bank that have left hundreds dead. Most appear to have been militants killed during shootouts with Israeli forces, but Palestinians taking part in violent protests and civilian bystanders have also been killed.

Israeli strikes on Gaza

The latest Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have killed at least 22 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as the Israeli offensive in the hard-hit and isolated north entered a third week and aid groups described a humanitarian catastrophe. Israel said it targeted militants.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said that 11 women and two children were among the 22 killed in the strikes late Saturday on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. It said a further 15 people were wounded and that the death toll could rise. It listed the names of those killed, who mostly came from three families.

The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike on militants in a structure in Beit Lahiya and took steps to avoid harming civilians. It disputed what it said were “numbers published by the media,” without elaborating or providing evidence for its own account.

The war began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s border wall and stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250, in that attack. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the local Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel is also fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict. The Hezbollah militant group, which is a proxy of Hamas and Iran, began firing missiles into Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

Some 2,000 people have been killed, including Hezbollah fighters and commanders, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. Israel has accused Hezbollah of putting fighters, command posts and weapons stashes in civilian areas, without providing evidence.