Spanish citizen among six dead after gunmen storm bus in Jerusalem
A SPANISH citizen was among the six people murdered in Monday’s terrorist attack in east Jerusalem, the Spanish government have confirmed.
Gunmen stormed a bus in Jerusalem during rush hour traffic on Monday morning, killing six people and wounding at least eleven others, including a pregnant woman, in one of the deadliest shootings in the holy city in years.
Israeli police said ‘two terrorists arrived by vehicle’ before aiming gunfire towards a bus stop at Ramot Junction.
The pair then allegedly boarded the No.62 bus and opened fire at random, murdering six men, aged between 25 and 79, and a 60-year-old woman.
Two of the wounded were reported to be in serious condition.
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, Hamas praised the actions of what it said were two Palestinian ‘resistance fighters’.
The attackers were ‘neutralised’ at the scene after an off-duty soldier and a civilian returned fire, police said.
One of the victims has been named as Ya’akov Pinto, 25, a Spanish citizen from Melilla, one of the Spanish-ruled enclaves on the northern African coast, who had been living in Israel.
“The government wishes to express its solidarity and extend its deepest condolences to the families of the victims, especially those of the murdered Spanish citizens, and to express its hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible,” the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.
READ MORE: Israel summons Spanish ambassador after PM Pedro Sanchez calls country a ‘genocidal state’
“Spain reiterates its commitment to peace in the Middle East and its firm condemnation of terrorism.”
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: “We are in an intense war against terror on several fronts. I want to send condolences to the families of the dead and to the wounded.
“A pursuit and encirclement of the villages from which the terrorists came is under way.”
Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, said on X: “My strongest condemnation of the attack that occurred this morning in East Jerusalem.
“I wish to convey my condolences to the Israeli people and, in particular, to the families of the victims, among whom is the Spanish citizen Ya’akov Pinto.
“Violence is not the way. We are convinced that peace in the Middle East is possible.”
The terrorist attack came on the same day Sanchez escalated his scathing criticism of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Speaking on Monday to announce nine new measures designed to force Netanyahu to stop his brutal military campaign, Sanchez said he felt compelled to intervene to try to ‘stop a massacre’.
He said: “What PM Netanyahu presented in October 2023 as a military operation in response to the horrific terrorist attacks has ended up becoming a new wave of illegal occupations and an unjustifiable attack against the Palestinian civilian population – an attack that the UN special rapporteur and the majority of experts already describe as a genocide.”
“Protecting your country and your society is one thing, but bombing hospitals and killing innocent boys and girls with hunger is another thing entirely.
“That isn’t defending yourself, that’s not even attacking. It’s exterminating a defenceless people. It’s breaking all the rules of humanitarian law.”
Among the measures he announced ‘to stop the genocide in Gaza’ was a law formalising the current prohibition of military equipment sales or purchases with Israel, and a ban on the use of Spanish ports or airspace to transport fuel or weapons to Israel’s military.
“We know that all those measures won’t be enough to stop the invasion or the war crimes,” Sanchez added. “But we hope that they will serve to add to the pressure on PM Netanyahu and his government, to alleviate some of the suffering of the Palestinian population, and to let the Spanish know that their country was on the right side of history when it came to one of the most infamous episodes of the 21st century.”
Sanchez’s comments provoked ire from the Israeli government, who accused the socialist premier of ‘anti-semitism’ and ‘corruption’.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, announced that youth minister Sira Rego and deputy prime minister Yolanda Diaz would be bannedd from entering Israel, the latter of whom Sa’ar accused of ‘exploiting PM Sanchez’s political weakness and dragging him, step by step, into implementing her anti-Israel and anti-Semitic vision’.
Sa’ar also used this morning’s terrorist attack to launch a scatching condemnation of Sanchez’s foreign policy, tweeting: “At the very same time that Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez attacked Israel – Palestinian terrorists attacked and murdered six Israelis, among them Ya’akov Pinto, a new immigrant from Spain.
“Sanchez and his twisted ministers who justified the October 7 massacre, has long since chosen to stand with Hamas and against Israel. Disgraceful!”
In response, the Spanish foreign ministry described the Israeli government’s words as ‘false and slanderous’, adding that it would not be ‘intimidated in its defence of peace, international law and human rights’.
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