Jerusalem, Mar 30 (PTI) At least five people were killed in a shooting attack on Tuesday evening in a suburb of Tel Aviv in the third such attack in Israel over the last seven days, bringing the total number of Israeli deaths to eleven in the recent terror attacks.
In a stern message following the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowed to deal with such attacks with an “iron fist”, prompting the Israeli police to go to the highest level of alert.
“Israel is facing a wave of murderous Arab terrorism…The security forces are at work. We will fight terrorism with persistence, diligence and an iron fist”, Bennett said in a statement.
“They will not move us from here. We will prevail,” the Israeli PM vowed.
A police spokesman said that the shooting took place in two different areas in Bnei Brak near Tel aviv.
One of the victims is said to be a police officer who was trying to stop the attacker, while the rest were civilians.
Footage from the scene showed the assailant entering a convenience store armed with an assault rifle and firing at a young man, who is seen escaping into a nearby building.
The shooter then aimed his rifle at another person riding on a bike, but missed, and then opened fire at a passing car. The car came to a stop after the initial fire, at which point the assailant came closer to it and fired through the window at the driver, who was killed.
Police said that the assailant was shot at the scene by a police officer.
The shooter was named as Diaa Hamarsheha, a 26-year-old Palestinian from Ya’bad, near Jenin, in the West Bank. He had apparently been in Israel illegally.
He is said to have been arrested by Israel in 2013 for security offenses and also served a six-month sentence.
Israeli Police were looking for other suspects amid warning by Ramat Gan Mayor, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, to the city’s residents not to leave their homes if not absolutely necessary.
There have been two more terror attacks in Israel in the southern city of Beersheba and the northern city of Holon over the past one week.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz convened a situational assessment with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet security service, the head of military intelligence and the head of the military’s operations division.
The Israeli security cabinet will hold a meeting on Wednesday regarding the attack.
An official for Islamic Hamas in the Gaza Strip said that the organization “welcomes the heroic operation, which is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people.” “This is also a swift response to the shameful summit that was held in the south”, he said referring to the Negev Summit in which Israel hosted a number of Arab foreign ministers.
No group has yet taken responsibility for the shooting.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, saying that killings of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians might lead to escalation, at a “time in which we are striving for stability” ahead of Ramadan, Passover and Easter. PTI HM RCJ RCJ
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Source: The Print
