A woman who was seriously injured Wednesday in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem has died of her wounds Sunday evening, bringing the death toll from the attack to two, the Hadassah University Medical Center announced.
The woman, a 20-year-old tourist from Ecuador, arrived in Israel to convert to Judaism, local media quoted a police spokeswoman as saying.
The tourist was injured along with seven others when a man from East Jerusalem rammed his car into a crowd of commuters as they disembarked from a train at a light rail station situated just a few hundred meters from the Israel Police national headquarters.
Three-month-old Haya Zissel-Braun, who was also a U.S. citizen, sustained critical cranial injuries and died shortly after arriving at a hospital.
According to authorities, the assailant was a Palestinian man who resided in the village of Silwan in East Jerusalem. The suspect was shot by a police officer while trying to flee the scene. He was later arrested but died from his wounds soon afterwards. Police said that he was affiliated with Islamist group Hamas and had previously served jail time in Israel for security- related offenses.
Speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "extremist Islamist elements" were fuelling the dramatic escalation of violence that has rattled Jerusalem in recent months. One person was injured and four people were arrested in riots that resumed in the capital's Arab neighborhoods over the weekend.
"There are extremist Islamist elements who are trying to set Israel's capital ablaze," Netanyahu said in his opening remarks at the meeting. "We will exert all the necessary force, with determination and responsibility, to ensure they will not succeed. "
Violence has also spread to the West Bank, where a 17-year-old Palestinian, who held a dual U.S. citizenship, was shot dead by Israeli troops on Friday night, after hurling a firebomb on a major traffic artery near Ramallah.
The U.S. State Department said it would request more information from the Israeli authorities regarding the circumstances of the teen's death.