TEL AVIV — Israeli emergency services are treating dozens of casualties after a truck dropping passengers off at a bus stop near the Grillot military base north of Tel Aviv crashed into a bus Sunday morning.
An Israeli police spokesperson said a preliminary investigation showed that the truck collided not only with the bus but also with its passengers.
Israeli police said civilians at the scene “shot and incapacitated the truck driver.”
Israeli police and emergency responders recover the body of a truck driver at the scene of a ramming attack in Ramat Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, on October 27, 2024. A truck driver rammed his car into a crowd at a downtown bus stop. At least 24 people were injured in Israel on Sunday, police said, before being “shot and incapacitated.” (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)JACK GUEZ / AFP – Getty Images
The circumstances of the accident are still under investigation, and Israeli police have not announced whether they will treat the incident as a suspected terrorist attack or a traffic accident.
But Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a “natural reaction” to Israeli actions in “Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
A video geolocated by NBC News shows the immediate aftermath of the rescue effort, narrated in Hebrew by a panicked woman who said she was on the bus that was rammed.
“We’re at the Chaim-Herzog base, and the truck came full force and hit us,” she said. We managed to escape, but some people were trapped and some were elderly. ”The video showed several people trapped under the truck, some responding to requests from rescue workers.
“You won’t understand what’s going on here,” she said. “God, God, I can’t see this.”
Ronit Glaser, head of Israel’s emergency medical service Magen David Adom, describes the chaotic situation as responders responded to a call of "mass casualties” near Grillot Junction in a video posted to X. did.
She said the MDA had sent “care units, ambulances, motorcycles, first responders, paramedics and paramedics” to the scene.
MDA paramedics and paramedics provided treatment and evacuated to a nearby hospital. According to the announcement, a total of 35 people were injured, including six with serious injuries, five with moderate injuries, and 20 with mild injuries. Four people are worried.
Volunteer emergency service United Hazara said “a number of pedestrians” were involved and remained trapped under the truck 30 minutes after the incident.
In another incident late Sunday, the IDF said “a terrorist accelerated with a car toward IDF soldiers who were conducting counterterrorism operations” in the village of Hizma in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
According to the statement, the man pulled a knife from his car and “attempted to stab him to death,” but soldiers killed him.
No Israeli Defense Force injuries were reported.
This is a story in development. Please check the latest information. Yalden Segev reported from Tel Aviv and Freddie Clayton from London.
