TEL AVIV — Israel’s emergency services are treating dozens of casualties after a truck rammed into a bus as it was dropping off passengers at a bus stop near the Glilot military base north of Tel Aviv on Sunday morning.
A spokesperson for Israel’s police force said a preliminary investigation indicated that the truck collided with passengers as well as the bus.
Civilians at the scene “shot at the truck driver and neutralized him,” Israeli police said.
A 72-year-old man died from his injuries after being taken to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, the hospital confirmed to NBC News.
The circumstances of the crash remain under investigation, and Israeli police have not indicated whether they are treating the incident as a suspected terror attack or a traffic accident.
However, Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a “natural response” to Israel’s actions in “Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.”
A video geolocated by NBC News shows the immediate aftermath and the rescue operation, being narrated in Hebrew by a woman who said she was on the bus that had been rammed.
“We are at Haim Hertzog base. A truck came with full power, hit us,” she said. “We managed to escape. There are some of our people trapped, senior citizens trapped.”
In the video, several people could be seen pinned beneath the truck, with some responsive to rescue workers.
“You can’t understand what’s going on here,” she said. “God, god, I can’t look at this.”
Ronit Glaser of Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency medical services, described a chaotic scene in a video posted on X, as responders received a call of a “mass casualty event” near Glilot Junction.
She said MDA sent “care units, ambulances, motorcycles, first responders, paramedics and EMTs” to the scene.
MDA EMTs and paramedics provided medical treatment and evacuated the wounded to nearby hospitals. It said that a total of 35 people were injured, including six in serious condition, five in moderate condition and 20 in mild condition. Four are suffering from anxiety.
United Hatzalah, a volunteer emergency service, said “a large number of pedestrians” were involved and that people remained trapped under the truck 30 minutes after the incident.
In a separate incident later on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said “a terrorist accelerated with his vehicle toward IDF soldiers who were conducting a counterterrorism activity” in the village of Hizma, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
It said the person pulled a knife from his vehicle and “attempted to carry out a stabbing attack,” but was killed by the soldiers. No IDF injuries were reported.
Yarden Segev reported from Tel Aviv and Freddie Clayton and Matteo Moschella from London.
