Bus Stop Car Ramming Attacks in Israel

"A mighty war against terror is taking place on all fronts. We are now pursuing and encircling the villages where the terrorists came from."

"[Security forces have thwarted hundreds of attacks this year], But unfortunately, not this morning."

"The fighting continues in the Gaza Strip. [Israel] will destroy Hamas as we promised and free our hostages — all of our hostages."

"Sadly, the war also continues in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, [West Bank] where we have acted with great force."

"[Such terror attacks will not deter Israel.] They only increase our determination to complete our missions, in Judea and Samaria too — everywhere."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the scene of a terror attack at Ramot Junction, entrance to Jerusalem, September 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

 

"I was on the bus. The bus was packed. The moment [the driver] opened the door… terrorists came. It was terrible."

"I was by the back door, I fell on everyone and escaped, I saved myself."

"There was gunfire there beyond anything imaginable. I can’t believe I’m standing here. Indescribable gunfire." 

Malka Cohen, passenger, bus 62 

 

"[This was a] heroic operation."

"We affirm that this operation is a natural response to the occupation’s crimes and war of extermination it is waging against our people."

"[West Bank Palestinians should continue to] escalate the confrontation with the occupation and its settlers."

Hamas statement

Police and rescue personnel at the scene of a terror attack at Ramot Junction near the entrance to Jerusalem, September 8, 2025 (Chaim Goldberg/FLASH90)

 

Yet another of the countless attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis. Bus stops are a favourite target, as are many other people-gathering areas to ensure that carnage is as widespread as possible. A terrorist armed with a submachine gun as these two attackers were, even a pistol, is capable of murdering many people in such gathering places, and wounding even greater numbers. People who just happened to be waiting for transportation at such hubs, or dining at popular restaurants, or sauntering along the street on a day of relaxation, or attending public meetings, their numbers arresting the attention of those who respond to the incitement of the Palestinian Authority and the celebrity status they gain after such attacks.

 

The infamous "Pay for Slay" is another incentive in the guise of monetary awards, a reward for courage in the face of  an unarmed, oblivious-to-danger 'enemy' in a Palestinian culture inculcated from grade school by videos, plays, photographs, lectures and plays demonstrating the noble obligation of Palestinian youths to aspire to become martyrs and in the process gift the heavens above with the death of despised Jews. On this occasion, two young men from villages in the West Bank acted in concert to spray innocent Israeli civilians with gunfire in a determination to become the heroes of another atrocity.

 

This fatal terror attack in Jerusalem Monday morning took six lives and wounded over a dozen other people. As it happened, an armed soldier in the crowded terminal who just happened to be there, along with two citizens who were also armed -- a not uncommon measure of self-protection in Israel -- neutralized the two who had been driven to the area by a third man, to carry out their planned attack, at a time when the state of Israel and its military are deeply embroiled in self-defence against Palestinian and jihad-happy terrorists throughout the region.

 

The victims of a deadly terror shooting in Jerusalem, on September 8, 2025; Top L-R: Levi Yitzhak Pash, Yisrael Matzner, 28; Rabbi Yosef David, 43; Bottom L-R: Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79; Yaakov Pinto, 25; Sarah Mendelson, 60 (Courtesy)

 

This event was the deadliest such attack since 2024 in East Jerusalem. In a country that is always on guard and which will never be entirely free of such 'spontaneous' expressions of unreasoning hatred from an enemy taught since birth to view all Jews as fair game in a never-ending territorial war that demands all and overlooks nothing. Paramedics responding to an all-too-familiar scene spoke of the wounded lying unconscious on the sidewalk and road close to the bus stop.

 

According to the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, the two attackers were 20- and 22-year-old Palestinians from the West Bank, neither of whom had a record of prior arrest. Prime Minister Netanyahu at the scene, warned that Israel would respond to such attacks with wide military raids, in reference to operations to target refugee camps in the West Bank.  

"The fact that we eliminated these two terrorists is not enough, the fact that we go after the supporters and aides, that is not enough either."

"We have already eliminated nests of terror in refugee camps, in three."

"We simply evacuated the population from there and flattened all the terror infrastructure -- and my instruction is to do the same in other nests of terror."  

Paramedics respond to a shooting attack at the Ramot Junction near the entrance to Jerusalem, which wounded at least 15 people and killed 6, on September 8, 2025. (Magen David Adom)

 

A previous similar attack in the Ramot Junction area took place in 2023 when an Israeli citizen, Hussein Qaraqa, a resident of Issawiya, a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, rammed his car into a group of people at a bus stop near Ramot Junction. In that attack, 6-year-old Yaakov Yisrael Paley and 20-year-old Alter Shlomo Lederman died at the scene, while Asher Menahem Paley 8, Yaakov's older brother, critically injured in the attack, died of his wounds in hospital the following day.