JERUSALEM (AP) — A car-ramming and stabbing attack by a Palestinian man left two people dead in northern Israel on Friday, police said.
Police said the attacker first crashed his vehicle into people in the northern city of Beit Shean, killing one man, and then sped onto a highway, where he fatally stabbed a young woman. Police said that the attacker was heading toward the nearby city of Afula when a civilian bystander intervened and the attacker was shot.
Both of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, Israel’s rescue services said. A teenage boy was hospitalized with minor wounds sustained in the car-ramming, according to bystanders.
Police said that the attacker, who was hospitalized with injuries, came from the West Bank.
The war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and sparked a surge of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, with a rise in attacks by Palestinian militants as well as Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
In September, Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop during the morning rush hour in Jerusalem, killing six people and wounding another 12, according to Israeli officials.
