10 casualties at least in bus blast in Jerusalem

Police say cause unclear as TV images show smoke billowing from bus in south-west of city

An explosion on board a bus in Jerusalem has injured at least 15 people, two seriously. The cause of the explosion was not known immediately.

Television images showed smoke billowing from a bus on Hebron Road, a busy route out of the city in south-west Jerusalem. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quoting an Israeli police spokesperson, the bus was not carrying any passengers when it exploded, and the casualties were apparently people close to the bus.

Witnesses said the bus blast caused a second bus and another vehicle to catch fire, with a plume of smoke visible across the city. Police and paramedics rushed to the scene.

Mickey Cohen, the head of United Hazolah emergency responders in Jerusalem, told the newspaper from the scene: “When I arrived I saw two buses going up in flames and about 10 causalities. Among them one who was mortally wounded and another in serious condition. We provided initial medical treatment to the wounded.”

The injured were taken to two of the main hospitals in Jerusalem, the Share Zedek and the Hadassah medical centres. Two were seriously injured and six had moderate wounds.

The bus was on the outskirts of the city, heading in the direction of settlements in the West Bank, at the time of the blast.

Monday’s blast comes amid a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis, mostly stabbings, and if confirmed as a terror attack will raise fears of a return to the regular suicide attacks on buses that ravaged Israeli cities a decade ago.

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