2 pedestrians wounded in hit-and-run outside Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate

Police rule out terror motive, continue to investigate incident; both victims -- yeshiva students -- are lightly wounded

Illustrative: Mounted police patrol near the Jaffa gate outside the Old City of Jerusalem, February 22, 2018. (Sasha Betzer/Flash90)

Two pedestrians were lightly wounded in a hit-and-run accident outside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City early Wednesday, police and medics said.

Police sent reinforcements to the site and were searching for the driver who fled the scene.

On Wednesday morning they ruled out the possibility of the incident being a car-ramming terror attack, transferring the investigation of the incident to a unit in charge of traffic accidents.

The Magen David Adom rescue service said the two victims, a 19-year-old and a 29-year-old, both students at a yeshiva, were conscious and treated at the scene before being taken to a nearby hospital in a good condition.

The area has been the site of frequent stabbing attacks in recent years, but it is also a busy thoroughfare and one of the main entrances for cars into the Old City.

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