In the early hours of Tuesday local time, a suspected terror attack took place near the Shimon Hatzadik tomb in East Jerusalem, leaving two men injured. The police received a report of a shooting at a vehicle in the area of Shimon Hatzadik, which is located in East Jerusalem, where tensions between Palestinians and Jewish settlers have been simmering in recent years.
The Shimon Hatzadik tomb is a revered holy site in Judaism, located in the largely Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. The attack occurred amid escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, with tensions boiling over during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which coincided this year with the Jewish Passover holiday.
Israeli police twice raided the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, leading to wide condemnations from the Arab and Muslim world. The complex and the neighborhood where Tuesday's shooting took place lies in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state and which most of the international community considers to be Israeli-occupied territory.
The attack has been condemned by leaders from both sides, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice. The incident comes as Israeli-Palestinian violence has been on the rise, with last year being the deadliest for both Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and for Israelis in nearly two decades.
The situation remains tense, with both sides blaming each other for the escalation in violence. The international community has called for calm and restraint, urging both sides to engage in dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the long-standing conflict.