Palestinian gunmen kill 6 people in attack on Jerusalem bus stop

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop during the morning rush hour in Jerusalem on Monday, killing six people and wounding another 12, according to Israeli officials.

An Israeli soldier and civilians who were at the scene shot and killed the two attackers, said police, who later arrested a third person in connection with the shooting. Footage of the attack showed dozens of people fleeing from the bus stop at a busy intersection. The windshield of a bus was riddled with bullet holes and belongings were scattered across the street.

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.

Monday’s shooting — at a major intersection, with a road leading to Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem — was the deadliest in Israel since October 2024.

Later on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said two 14-year-old Palestinians had been shot and killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Jenin, where Israel has carried out several major military operations in recent years.

The military said troops fired at individuals who had entered an area under a closure order. It said they posed a threat to its forces, without specifying the nature of the threat or providing evidence, and that they had ignored instructions to leave.

Paramedics who responded to the scene said broken glass covered the area, and people wounded lay unconscious on the road and a sidewalk near the bus stop. Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said the two attackers were 20- and 21-year-old Palestinians from the West Bank with no prior arrests.

Hamas hailed the attack without claiming responsibility, calling it a “natural response to the occupation’s crimes against our people.”

President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, condemned “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” and “denounced all forms of violence and terrorism, regardless of their source,” according to a statement from his office.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security matters, has been largely sidelined since the start of the war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene after his ongoing corruption trial was delayed due to the attack. He praised the soldier who fired on the gunmen, who was from a newly-formed unit for ultra-Orthodox Jewish soldiers.

Later, he warned that Israel would respond to such attacks with wide military raids, referring to operations that inflicted heavy destruction on built-up refugee camps in Jenin and other parts of the West Bank, and displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians earlier this year.

“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,” Netanyahu said.

"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.”

Hundreds of security forces searched for additional attackers or explosives that could have been planted around the area. On Monday afternoon, police said they arrested a resident of east Jerusalem who was connected to the attack.

The Israeli military said it is encircling Palestinian villages on the outskirts of the nearby West Bank city of Ramallah as it steps up defense in response.

In October 2024, two Palestinians from the West Bank opened fire inside a light rail train in Tel Aviv, killing seven people and leaving many others wounded. Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for that attack, the deadliest in Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023 raid that started the war in Gaza.

Data from the U.N.’s humanitarian office says at least 49 Israelis, including some soldiers and police, have been killed by Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank between the start of the war and July this year.

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Mourners attend the funeral of Levi Yitzhak Pash, who was killed along with five other Israelis in a shooting attack by two Palestinian gunmen at a bus stop in Jerusalem Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Mourners attend the funeral of Levi Yitzhak Pash, who was killed along with five other Israelis in a shooting attack by two Palestinian gunmen at a bus stop in Jerusalem Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli police and rescue teams inspect the scene of a shooting attack carried out by two Palestinian gunmen, in which several people were killed and others injured at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Israeli Zaka rescue and recovery team carry the body of a victim at the scene of shooting attack carried out by two Palestinian gunmen, in which several people were killed and others injured at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the site of a shooting attack at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli police and rescue teams respond at the scene of a shooting attack where several people killed and injured in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, right, visit the site of a shooting attack at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool Photo via AP)

Israeli police and rescue teams respond at the scene of a shooting attack where several people killed and injured in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Israeli police and rescue teams respond at the scene of a shooting attack where several people killed and injured in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Israeli Zaka rescue and recovery team carry the body of a victim at the scene of shooting attack where several people killed and injured in Jerusalem, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.

After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.

Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

The U.S. government late Sunday said in a social media post on Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”

Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.

Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.

The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

“Pax Americana” refers to the U.S.’s postwar dominance as a superpower that has brought relative peace to the globe.

Merz warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.

Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”

Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.

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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland.

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, leaves through a hotel garage for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,stands in his office in the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine, at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

Jared Kushner, entrepreneur and former chief adviser to President Donald Trump, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, watches Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving at the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)