"National Level Alert": 2 Killed After Gunman Opens Fire In Israel

Two people were killed in Israel when a gunman opened fire on a crowded bus stop near the southern town of Kiryat Malakhi on Friday, a hospital and police said.

Two people who were brought to Kaplan Medical Center had been declared dead, a spokeswoman for the facility told AFP. Four others were wounded in the shooting, Israeli police said.

An AFP photographer at the scene reported the gunman had been killed and his body was still at the site of the attack. Police said he had been "neutralised" by a civilian at the scene.

"We have raised a national level alert," Israel's police chief Kobi Shabtai told reporters at the site, without providing details on the attacker.

On Sunday evening there were two stabbing attacks -- one against police in annexed east Jerusalem and the other against troops at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.

The attackers in both incidents were killed while there were no casualties among security forces.

Kiryat Malakhi is located about 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of the Gaza Strip, where Israel's war with Hamas operatives has raged for more than four months.

The conflict was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

At least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel's retaliatory military offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

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