(Jerusalem) A suspect from East Jerusalem injured five people on Monday afternoon when he drove his car into passers-by in central Jerusalem before being shot by an armed civilian, Israel Police said.

At least five people were injured in what Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called a “terrorist attack”.

The Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, said in a statement that a 70-year-old man was seriously injured while a 30-year-old woman and three men aged 25 to 50 were in less condition. worrying.

According to the police, the assailant is a man in his thirties, originally from Beit Safafa, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area occupied and annexed by Israel.

“A civilian who was near the scene and witnessed the scene shot and neutralized the terrorist,” who was killed, police said in a statement.

AFP journalists saw rescuers place a body in an ambulance, while police inspected a car with a crashed front and a windshield bearing the impact of a bullet.

“A few minutes ago, not far from here, another attempt was made to assassinate the citizens of Israel. This terrorist attack in this place, at this time, reminds us that the land and the State of Israel are acquired only through many hardships,” Netanyahu said in a statement, as Israel is preparing to celebrate from Tuesday evening the 75th anniversary of its creation.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen a wave of increased violence since January.

Earlier Monday, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, in a military operation described as “counter-terrorism” by the Israeli army.

Since the start of the year, the conflict has claimed the lives of at least 97 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.

These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.