Israeli police announced on Sunday the arrest of a suspect in the terrorist attack on a bus near the Old City of Jerusalem, which injured eight people, two seriously and a pregnant woman.
'The terrorist is in our hands,' police spokesman Kan Eli Levy told public radio hours after the attack early Sunday near David's Tomb, a holy site for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
“He is a lone assailant, a city dweller with a criminal record,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said during his cabinet meeting.
"Anyone who wants to harm us should know that they will pay the price for any harm to our civilians," he said in a statement earlier.
The Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, intervened after receiving reports of shootings at a bus in Jerusalem.
His spokesman, Zaki Heller, reported seven injured, "all conscious, a woman and six men, two of whom are in serious condition".
The police reported eight injuries, according to a latest report.
“I was coming back from the Wailing Wall.
The bus was full of passengers.
I stopped at the David's Tomb bus stop.
At that time, the shooting started,” bus driver Daniel Kanievsky told a small group of journalists on the spot.
“I saw two people on the bus bleeding.
Everyone was panicking,” he added, standing in front of his bullet-riddled bus at the foot of Jerusalem’s Old City.
“We can confirm that American citizens are among the victims,” a spokesman for the US Embassy in Jerusalem told AFP, adding “to gather more information”.
Caesarean section of a pregnant woman injured during the attack
At Shaarei Tsedek Hospital in Jerusalem, medical teams had to perform a caesarean section on a pregnant woman injured in the attack.
“She remains intubated and in serious condition.
The baby was born and is in stable condition,” the hospital spokesperson told AFP.
For its part, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, hailed a “heroic operation” without formally claiming it.
"Our people will continue to resist and fight the occupier by all means," Hamas said in a statement.