One dead in suspected terror attack on Mossad headquarters

A freight truck has ploughed into a crowd at a bus stop near Israel’s spy agency, killing one person and injuring dozens more in what police are investigating as a terror attack.

A freight truck has ploughed into a crowd at a bus stop in central Israel, killing one person and injuring dozens more, in what police said they were investigating as a terrorist attack.

The truck rammed into the crowd as people were getting off a bus, police said. At least six of the 35 injured were in serious condition and five were in moderate condition, medical officials said. A 72-year-old man died later from his injuries, Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv said.

The site of the attack was adjacent to a mall and across from a military base in Glilot, north of Tel Aviv. Civilians and soldiers were among the injured, medical authorities said. Glilot is home to the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, which Hezbollah and Iran have both claimed to have targeted over the past year in separate missile attacks.

Video from the scene showed several elderly civilians trapped under the hood of the truck, with bystanders struggling to pull them from under the vehicle. Paramedics said they found victims under the truck when they arrived at the scene.

Police and officials at the site of the crash. Picture: Getty Images.

The driver of the truck was “neutralised” by armed civilians at the scene, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the driver was killed or injured.

“I saw a number of people trapped under the truck and the attacker was neutralised inside of it,” said Raziel Yosefovich, a paramedic of Magen David Adom, which manages Israel’s emergency medical response.

In a separate incident on Sunday, Israel’s military said a Palestinian accelerated his vehicle at soldiers operating in the West Bank, near the town of Hizma, before stepping out of his vehicle with a knife and trying to stab them. The soldiers killed the attacker, the military said.

The incidents come as tensions in the region are high following Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran and amid a stepped-up campaign by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups to carry out attacks inside Israel. Hamas claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks, one in Tel Aviv that killed seven and one in Beersheba that killed a female soldier, earlier this month.

On Sunday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi said the country proposed an initiative for a two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four hostages – among those taken by Hamas more than a year ago – with some Palestinian prisoners. He also said that talks to permanently end the fighting would take place within 10 days of implementing the temporary ceasefire.

Negotiations over a possible ceasefire were scheduled to take place on Sunday in Doha, with representatives from Israel, the U.S. and Arab states.

Ceasefire discussions largely collapsed in recent months as Israel and Hamas failed to agree to terms for a permanent end to fighting. Senior U.S. officials had privately acknowledged a deal likely wouldn’t come together before the end of President Biden’s term.

The war in Gaza began in October last year when Hamas led an attack against Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups also took around 250 hostages; about 100 remain in Gaza, with many of those feared dead. The Israeli military campaign has caused the deaths of more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to authorities in the strip, who don’t say how many were combatants.

Hamas said it welcomed the Glilot incident, calling it a “natural response” to Israeli crimes against Palestinians, but didn’t take responsibility. Hezbollah also praised the attack, calling it an “heroic operation,” but didn’t take responsibility for it.

It is the fifth suspected terrorist attack within Israel since the start of October. From July through September, there were seven terrorist attacks within Israel, according to the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency. In the same months, the Shin Bet claims to have foiled two other significant attacks.

Dow Jones