KFAR YONA: The Israeli military said eight soldiers were wounded on Thursday when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop in what police called a “terror attack.”
The army said two soldiers were “moderately injured” and six “lightly injured” in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel.
“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it said in a statement.
There has been a spate of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian militants’ attack on October 7, 2023.
A teenager died in March this year when police said a car driven by a Palestinian man deliberately plowed into civilians at a bus stop in northern Israel.
One witness to Thursday’s ramming said the driver cut her off the road near Kfar Yona, then “turned his wheel to the right, full gas, as fast as he could, and hit as many people as he could.”
Kineret Hanuka, 45, told AFP: “I saw only blood and heard them screaming: ‘It hurts!’... It was so hard for me to see this.”
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) first responders said they received a report at 9:25 am (0625 GMT) that a vehicle had crashed into a bus stop near Kfar Yona.
They said that the wounded had chest, limb and head injuries.
Israeli police spokesman Dedan Elsdunne described the incident as a “terror attack, where a terrorist rammed his vehicle into individuals who were standing here waiting to catch the bus.”
“He (the attacker) then attempted to flee. He abandoned his vehicle and fled from that location. We had large police forces who immediately arrived here, set up a perimeter so that we can locate this individual.”
The car was later recovered and the driver is being hunted using helicopters, motorbikes and a specialist dog unit, police added.
The site of the crash was cordoned off as forensic investigators combed the scene, AFP journalists reported.
In Israel, at least 32 people, including soldiers, have died in attacks by Palestinians since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, at least 960 Palestinians, including many fighters but also civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to Palestinian Authority figures.
At the same time, at least 36 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, Israeli figures showed.
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Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack
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Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack
- There has been a spate of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
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