An elderly driver was shot dead and a soldier was seriously injured in a terror attack on a northern highway, authorities said Monday morning.
The alleged terrorist was killed by Border Police officers who happened to be passing by as the attack took place near the lower Galilee city of Yokne’am, police said in a statement.
According to police, the attacker initially rammed his vehicle into a bus stop at the Tishbi Junction on Route 66 where the soldier, 20, had been waiting.
The suspect, who was not immediately named, then exited his car and stabbed the soldier.
Grabbing the soldier’s rifle, the attacker then ran down the highway and opened fire at passing cars, shooting and killing a driver, described by medics as a 75-year-old man.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said medics declared the driver dead at the scene.
The soldier, who serves as a heavy load truck driver in the Armored Corps, was hospitalized in serious condition at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. The emergency service said his condition had not been stabilized.
Security forces at the scene of a terror attack near Yokne’am, March 24, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)
The victims were not immediately named.
Footage circulated on social media showed the attacker running with the rifle along the highway and shooting into a car as it drove past.
In the video, he continues to open fire before falling to the ground, apparently after being shot by the Border Police officers who arrived at the scene.
תיעוד פיגוע ירי סמוך ליוקנעם! המחבל חוסל! הרוג ופצוע! pic.twitter.com/e9lrrykqCB
— יוני בן מנחם Yoni Ben Menachem (@BwMnhm) March 24, 2025
Eyewitness Gideon Shalom, who had been the only other person at the bus stop, told the Kan broadcaster that he just stepped away to get better cell phone reception when the terror suspect crashed a car into the small shelter.
“At first, I thought it was an accident, so I ran toward him. He got out with a 30-centimeter [12-inch] knife. I escaped over the road barrier, he stabbed the young man, and I heard two shots in my direction,” he said.
Shalom said he tried to warn a passing driver but the attacker was still able to fire at the vehicle.
“It was a nightmare what happened here,” he said.
The attack ended when Border Police officers on their way to a training exercise spotted the terrorist firing the rifle. They swiftly exited their vehicle and opened fire at him, police said.
Security forces at the scene of a terror attack near Yokne’am, March 24, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)
The attack came after several weeks of relative calm following a spate of attacks earlier this year, many of them centered in northern Israel.
On March 3, an Israeli man carrying a knife stabbed a man to death and injured four others at a major transit hub in the northern city of Haifa. The assailant, a member of the Druze community, was shot and killed. His family said he suffered from mental illness.
Days earlier, a Palestinian man steered his car into a crowd of people waiting at a bus stop near the city of Pardes Hanna in northern Israel in a terror spree that killed a teen girl and injured 12 others, authorities said. The attacker was killed at the scene.
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