At least five people have been killed in a shooting in eastern Tel Aviv, in the third such attack within days, Israeli and Arab media reported.
The Lebanese Al Mayadeen news channel quoted Israeli 0404 news site as saying that the shooting took place in three separate locations in Bnei Brak. The website added that the Israeli medics were treating several wounded, including some with critical injuries.
A woman present at the site of the Tel Aviv operation today said that "the militant asked us to move away from the place because he did not want to target women or children." In another testimony, she said he also did this to a religious woman with her children. #TelAviv pic.twitter.com/gzofZd8KT5
— Malak Yousef (@Malak__yousef) March 29, 2022
Following the attack, Israeli forces declared a state of emergency in Tel Aviv and imposed a lockdown in the Bnei Brak settlement.
The shooter has been identified as 26-year-old Diaa Hamarsheh, from the Palestinian town of Ya’bad, near Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hamarsheh was shot at the scene.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly said in a statement: “We will fight terrorism with persistence, diligence and an iron fist… We will win.”
BREAKING: Israeli paramedics say at least five people have been killed in a shooting in the central city of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv. The shooting took place two days after a shooting in the city of Hadera that left two police officers dead. https://t.co/FtIPpDw9F2
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 29, 2022
A Hamas official in the Gaza Strip was quoted by Haaretz as saying that the organization “welcomes the heroic operation, which is a natural response to the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation against the Palestinian people.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack at a “time in which we are striving for stability”. However, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of Abbas’s party, Fatah, welcomed the attack as “a natural response to the crimes of the occupation.”
The Tel Aviv attack came as foreign ministers of Israel and four Arab countries met in the Naqab area for a normalization summit, along with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
