A 16-year-old boy has died and at least 22 others are injured following twin explosions at a bus station in Jerusalem during rush hour on Wednesday morning.
Aryeh Schupa, a student from Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighbourhood, was killed in the attack while one of his friends was seriously wounded.
The attack was the first of its kind since 2016 and police said that explosive devices had been placed in bags near the two bus shelters, in Givat Shaul and Ramot, and that a search of the city was underway for more explosives.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but Israeli police claim it was a Palestinian attack and the Islamist militant group Hamas also praised the attack.
The explosion went off on a busy highway which leads out of the city and is often packed with commuters, and a second was reported in the north of the city around 30 minutes later.
"It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here, " Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio.
A senior security official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “the character of the twin attacks indicates that there is significant infrastructure behind them, including intelligence, the obtainment and preparation of explosives”.
The explosion is a huge escalation in what has already been the most deadly year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2006.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year.
Nearly 30 Israelis have been killed in stabbing, car-ramming and gun attacks.
And 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, were killed in a three-day Israeli aerial offensive on the Gaza Strip in August.
The Israeli army continually claims that most of the Palestinians killed have been militants.
British Ambassador Neil Wigan says he was "shocked by the terrorist attacks this morning."
Benjamin Netanyahu won re-election earlier this month but is still trying to form a coalition government. It is likely today's attacks will hasten talks which have been ongoing and the government seeks a conclusion.
The formation of his government is expected to make Israel’s government the most extremist yet. Itamar Ben-Gvir who will control the country's police has called for the use of the death penalty against so-called Palestinian terrorists.
President Isaac Herzog says the Jerusalem terror attack this morning “won’t weaken us or undermine our right to live peaceful lives in the Land of Israel and in our state, including in Jerusalem, our eternal capital.”
