Two injured in stabbing attack at Israeli mall | Israeli-Palestinian conflict news

Israeli police say the suspect was killed and are investigating the incident as a possible “terrorist attack.”

At least two people were injured, one seriously, in a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in northern Israel, police said.

The attack took place on Wednesday on the second floor of the Hutzot Karmiel shopping mall in the northern Israeli city of Karmiel.

Israel's National Ambulance Service said medics were treating two men in their 20s, one in very serious condition and the other fully conscious.

Video footage from the scene shared on social media, verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad fact-checking agency, showed people in the mall trying to provide medical treatment to one of the injured victims, who was wearing a green uniform.

Police said the suspect, whose name has not been released, had been “neutralized” and were investigating the incident as a possible “terrorist attack.”

The entrances to the mall were closed by police who conducted extensive search and sweep operations in the area, Israeli radio reported.

Israeli police, who suspect a Palestinian Israeli of carrying out the attack, also visited an Arab village near the city, according to Israeli radio.

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have escalated since Israel's war on Gaza, during which Israeli forces have carried out near-daily raids on the territory. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and 5,300 injured in the raids.

Al Jazeera journalist Nour Odeh said from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank: “It is impossible to separate what is happening inside Israel, regarding the stabbing attack, from the dynamics of the occupation in the West Bank or the war in Gaza.”

“Tensions have increased and reached a boiling point,” Odeh said, also referring to frequent army raids on Palestinian groups, rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages and deadly attacks by Palestinians in the streets.

“All this drives Palestinians to despair and anger at Israeli policies that push them off their land and make their lives unbearable, no matter where they are,” she added.

On Wednesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 37,953 people have been killed and 87,266 injured in Israel's war on Gaza since October 7.