Israeli police said a suspected ramming attack on Thursday injured at least nine people, including a 17-year-old girl who was critically wounded, Fox News has learned.
The incident happened at a bus station in Karkur Junction on Route 65 in northern Israel. The driver was also hurt and then “neutralized” at the scene, though police have not elaborated.
All of those wounded were evacuated to a nearby hospital. Of the nine victims, another two were “severely wounded,” while six were “lightly” wounded, Fox News is told.
An Israeli police spokesperson said in a statement obtained by Fox News identified the driver as a 53-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin area who was “in Israel unlawfully and married to an Israeli citizen.”
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Members of the Israeli security forces gather outside a cordoned-off area where a vehicle reportedly rammed into pedestrians at the Karkur Junction south of the city of Haifa in northern Israel on Feb. 27, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
“Preliminary findings indicate that he deliberately targeted civilians waiting at a bus stop,” the statement said. “The terrorist has been neutralized. This remains an active investigation.”
The police commissioner is conducting “an on-site situational assessment” in the wake of the incident, the statement added.
Graphic images show a man’s body in the street next to the vehicle used in the incident and members of the Israeli security forces nearby in a cordoned-off area.
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Israeli security forces inspect a vehicle that reportedly rammed into pedestrians at the Karkur Junction south of the city of Haifa in northern Israel on Feb. 27, 2025. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
There is a heavy police presence in the area, as a search for other possible attackers is underway.
Tensions have been escalating in the West Bank in recent days. On Sunday, Israel sent tanks into the northern West Bank town of Jenin for the first time in two decades, Reuters reported.
Thursday’s incident in Israel comes as House Republicans were already introducing a new bill to address the rising threat of vehicular terrorism. House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who chairs the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security, introduced a bill on the heels of the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that killed 14 people.
The bill would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct an annual report on emerging threats and countermeasures related to vehicular terrorism. The legislation cites how individuals on U.S. soil “are increasingly being radicalized to commit violence against Americans, frequently through ISIS publications and propaganda, with vehicular-ramming attacks emerging as a significant and growing method.”
Police officers inspect the scene after a suspected car ramming attack on Feb. 27, 2025, at Karkur Junction in Pardes Hanna-Karkur, Israel. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
The New Orleans attacker was identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran from Texas who went on to hold a lucrative consulting job and who authorities say was radicalized.
“The horrific ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans makes tragically clear how vehicles are weaponized as instruments of terror,” Gimenez said. “DHS must take actionable steps to counter the gross proliferation of vehicular threats and share the findings of its assessment with Congress and the American people.”
“DHS must take seriously the rising occurrences of vehicle-ramming terrorist attacks,” Green added. “In order to protect the American people, we must adapt to threats as they evolve with new technology and capabilities.”
Vice President JD Vance mentioned the increased trend of ramming attacks globally by alleged Islamic extremists when addressing the Munich Security Conference about mass migration this month. Just a day before Vance’s arrival in Munich, an Afghan refugee allegedly plowed his vehicle into a crowd there, killing a mother and her two-year-old daughter, while injuring dozens of others.
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“It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well,” Vance said. “An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?”
This is a developing news story. Check back for updates. Fox News’ Yael Kuriel and Thomas Ferraro contributed to this report.
