At least one person has been killed and 40 others injured, 10 them critically, after a truck crashed into a bus stop north of Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, officials say.
The incident happened on Sunday at a bus stop near the Gillot Israeli military base, with rescue workers saying several people were trapped under the truck.
Preliminary police findings showed the truck driver also hit a bus that had stopped at the same station to drop off passengers, the police said in a statement.
Photos and videos on social media showed several people pinned down under the truck as medics and rescuers tried to help. Police cordoned off the area and a security helicopter hovered above.
Police did not immediately say whether it was a deliberate attack.
“At 10:08 am [08:08 GMT], a report was received … of a truck hitting a bus stop on Aharon Yariv Boulevard in Ramat Hasharon … Paramedics are currently providing medical treatment on site to dozens of casualties,” the Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement.
One of those hurt died later of his injuries, said the hospital where he was taken for treatment.
The Jerusalem Post news website quoted police as saying civilians who were on the scene had shot at the truck driver to stop him.
Paramedic Elior Yosef, who arrived at the bus stop after the ramming, said he saw eight people “trapped under the truck”.
“A number of further casualties were either lying or walking near the truck,” he was quoted as saying in the Magen David Adom statement.
The Palestinian group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, said in a statement that the “heroic ramming attack” that was carried out near “Mossad headquarters … was in response to the crimes committed by the Zionist occupation” against Palestinians.
Abed Abou Shhade, a journalist from Jaffa in Israel, told Al Jazeera the truck driver is believed to be a Palestinian citizen from northern Tel Aviv.
“The civilians who witnessed the incident killed the driver as soon as they saw who he was,” he said.
“The police initially framed it as a terror attack. But now they have changed their line, saying the matter is still under investigation,” he added. “Everything is under speculation.”
Abou Shhade said due to the increasing tensions in Israel, suspects in such attacks are automatically labelled “terrorists” if the incident involves people of Arab background, even in cases where the circumstances are not clear.
The incident came as Israel marks the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack that was followed by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the war on Lebanon.
Elsewhere, a man who tried to stab a group of Israeli soldiers was killed in Hizma, a Palestinian town near Jerusalem.
“A terrorist accelerated with his vehicle toward [Israeli army] soldiers who were conducting counterterrorism activity adjacent to the area of Hizma,” the military said in a statement, without identifying the attacker.
“The terrorist pulled out a knife from his vehicle, and attempted to carry out a stabbing attack. The soldiers eliminated the terrorist and thwarted the attempted terror attack,” it said, adding that no soldiers were hurt.
