At least five people were killed on Tuesday, March 29, in armed attacks in the suburbs of the Israeli metropolis Tel Aviv, the emergency services announced. Police said they shot the assailant without revealing his identity. “We unfortunately found the death of five people”said the director of Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross.
Residents of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, then of the neighboring town of Ramat Gan reported a man driving in a car and opening fire on passers-by. The Israeli police confirmed these attacks and indicated that the assailant had been shot dead by the security forces who were patrolling these areas. The attack was not immediately claimed.
Although the identity of the assailant has not been revealed by the authorities, local media, such as Ha’aretz (in English), identified him as a Palestinian who had spent four years in Israeli prisons and hailed from Yaabad in the occupied West Bank.
“The security forces are at work. We will fight terrorism with an iron fist…Israel is facing a wave of deadly Arab terrorism”, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, after bringing together senior security officials to take stock of the situation. The police then announced that they were on alert and in “counter-terrorism”.
They are the third in Israel in a week. Two police officers, including a Franco-Israeli, were killed in a shooting claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday in Hadera, northern Israel. Israeli police have identified the attackers who were shot as Israeli Arab ISIS operatives.
Four Israelis (two men and two women) were killed in a stabbing and ramming attack on March 22 in Beersheva (southern Israel). The attack was carried out by a man inspired by the ideology of the IS group. The assailant, who died, was a teacher sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning to travel to Syria to fight in IS and for preaching his apology.
After the attack in Hadera on Sunday, the Palestinian armed Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad hailed a “heroic operation”. Hamas, the ruling group in the Gaza Strip, considered it a “natural and legitimate response to the occupation” and to “crimes” of Israel.
The Palestinian president was quick to condemn the attacks, a rare thing. “The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians only aggravates the situation further as we all strive to achieve stability”he said in a statement sent by the official Palestinian agency Wafa.
Reacting to the attacks on Tuesday evening, Hamas once again felt that “this operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against the rights of our people and our land and our holy places”.
“I condemn in the strongest terms these murderous attacks”, wrote Emmanuel Macron on Twitter. “My thoughts go out to the victims and their loved ones. Israel can count on the support of France and on my total commitment to the fight against this scourge”he added.
For its part, Germany reacted immediately after the attack on Tuesday. “All those with responsibility and influence must clearly condemn these acts of violence in order to avoid a further escalation of violence”, said a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry. He called to “avoid a spiral of violence during the upcoming holidays for Jews, Muslims and Christians”.