Saturday, April 9, 2022
Thursday evening, a gunman shot dead three people and wounded at least nine others in an entertainment district of Tel Aviv, Israel, before being located and killed in a shootout with security forces early Friday.
Magen David Adom, the national emergency medical service, said it received its first report of the incident at 21:00 IST (1900 UTC). Victims were transported to three different hospitals. Two men were immediately pronounced dead, and another died of his injuries. Three people are listed in serious condition and another four suffered minor injuries.
The shootings started at a pub on Dizengoff Street where five victims were reported. Others were shot on J. L. Gordon Street and in the nearby area. Shin Bet security forces killed the alleged gunman after a shootout near a mosque in the southern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa. The suspect was identified as a 29-year-old Palestinian man from Jenin, a city in the north of the West Bank.
Speaking at HaKirya on Friday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett offered his condolences to the families of those killed on behalf of the nation and wished for the full recovery of the wounded. He said the perpetrator was not a member any organization but had received help and weapons. “Those who aid and abet terrorists need to know that the price they will pay is too high to bear”, he said.
Bennett claimed there were celebrations in Jenin after the news of the attack. “I saw the father of the terrorist inciting to more violence and being proud of his son the murderer,” he said. “We, as a people and a state, will all need patience and strong nerves, and to be alert. But above all we need great faith in the justice of our cause in this land.”
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement: “We are closely following developments and will continue to be in regular contact with our Israeli partners, with whom we stand resolutely in the face of senseless terrorism and violence.”
There were several attacks in Israel in the month of March, including a shooting in Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv, which claimed the lives of five people.