Israeli police shot and killed a gunman who opened fire on a crowded Tel Aviv street, injuring three people. The attack occurred just hours after three Palestinian militants were killed in a shootout with Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
On Thursday evening, the gunman opened fire on a crowd at the intersection of Dizengoff Street and Ben Gurion Street, which was packed with Israelis celebrating the start of the weekend. According to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, three people were hit, with one critically injured.
Social media photos and videos showed the suspect brandishing a pistol and capturing the moment he was killed by a hail of police bullets.
According to initial Israeli media reports, an accomplice fled the scene, but this has yet to be confirmed by police as of Thursday night.
The attack was described by Abd al-Latif al-Kanua, a spokesman for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as “an initial response to the crimes of the occupation, the most recent of which was the murder of three young people this morning,” according to the Times of Israel.
The three people in question were allegedly members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization. They opened fire on Israeli troops during a raid on the West Bank village of Jaba on Thursday morning, according to Israeli police, and were shot dead. The raid and subsequent attack are the latest in a string of retaliatory attacks since Israel’s right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took office in late December.
Netanyahu’s government has approved the construction of thousands of new Israeli homes on Palestinian land, legalized several existing Jewish outposts, and appointed hardline Zionist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to oversee most civilian issues in the West Bank.
