REEM JUNCTION, Israel, (Reuters) -A man shot two people dead and wounded four others at a bus stop in southern Israel on Friday, emergency services said, in what Israeli media described as a suspected Palestinian attack.
The assailant was shot dead by an armed civilian who was at the scene, authorities said.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper and other outlets identified the shooter as a Palestinian man from East Jerusalem, but police said the investigation was placed under a court-sanctioned gag order and declined to confirm his identity to Reuters.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, praised Friday’s shooting as “a natural response” to Israel’s devastating war in Gaza and called on more Palestinians to take up arms.
The Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 28,700 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, laid much of the enclave to waste and displaced most of its 2.3 million population.
Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas after the group’s fighters burst through the Gaza border on Oct. 7 killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday’s attack showed that the “entire country is a front and that the murderers, who come not only from Gaza, want to kill us all.” He vowed to continue the Gaza war until “total victory” over Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, speaking at the scene of Friday’s shooting, pledged to increase distribution of firearms to civilians who have been arming themselves in record numbers in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.
(Reporting by Amir Cohen in Reem junction, Roleen Tafakfi and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Henriette Chacar in Tel Aviv; Editing by James Mackenzie, William Maclean, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Hugh Lawson)
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