After Jerusalem shooting, Netanyahu orders Gaza City residents: 'Leave now'

Israel ramps up offensive after Palestinian gunmen kill six

- STEFFIE BANATVALA BEL TREW

Benjamin Netanyahu warned residents of Gaza City to “leave now” ahead of a ramped-up military offensive, hours after at least six Israelis were killed in a shooting at a busy intersection in occupied east Jerusalem.

Israel’s military has pushed ahead with a controversial plan to seize complete control of the largest city in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities said 65 people had been killed in the last 24 hours alone.

Defence minister Israel Katz also vowed that a “powerful hurricane” would be unleashed there soon.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli police said yesterday that two Palestinian attackers opened fire around 10.15am local time at people waiting at a bus stop near Ramot Junction at the northern entrance to the city on a road leading to a settlement.

The junction is located in a part of Jerusalem that Israel captured in the 1967 war and later annexed in a move that the United Nations and most countries do not recognise.

Paramedics described a chaotic scene, with victims lying wounded and unconscious on the road and pavement.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said the two attackers were Palestinians aged 20 and 21 from the West Bank with no prior arrests. Calling it a “terror attack”, Israeli police said they were killed swiftly after the shooting began.