The shootings come amid a wave of terrorist attacks in recent weeks, the deadliest to hit Israel in years. Thirteen people have been killed in terrorist attacks by Palestinians from Israel or the West Bank since March 22. Israeli police say the perpetrator, a man from the Jenin refugee camp in the North West Bank, shot at the Ilka pub on Dizengoff Street, one of Tel Aviv’s busiest shopping malls and nightclubs just before 9 p.m. Thursday, at the beginning of the weekend. in Israel. He then fled the scene. The police ordered the inhabitants to go in, lock their doors and stay away from their windows as hundreds of police officers swept the city, looking in courtyards and construction sites by pursuing the offender. Videos posted on social media showed emergency workers loading victims onto stretchers and working to clear debris as helicopters dropped publicity from above. The gunman was found and killed in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli police around 6 a.m. Friday near a mosque in central Jaffa, a mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood south of Tel Aviv. He was identified as Raed Hazem, 29, and resided in Israel without permission from the Jenin refugee camp. The camp is a hotbed of political and militant activity in the North West Bank. The two Israelis killed by the gunman were men in their 20s, according to Israeli emergency services. More than a dozen others, also between the ages of 20 and 30, were shot in the chest and stomach, doctors said. “It was a very difficult night. And all those who helped [the terrorist] “He will pay a price, directly or indirectly,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Bennett, along with Defense Secretary Benny Ganz and Public Security Secretary Omer Bar-Lev, were monitoring the situation from the Tel Aviv military headquarters, several blocks from the site of the attack, their offices said. The US ambassador to Israel, Tom Naides, tweeted that he was “shocked to see another cowardly terrorist attack on innocent civilians, this time in Tel Aviv.” “This has to stop!” He wrote. Bennett announced late Thursday that his government would step up security forces in Tel Aviv, in addition to the already growing number of troops recently deployed throughout Israel and the West Bank. Last week, Bennett called on authorized Israelis to carry weapons after a Palestinian attacked a suburb of Tel Aviv, killing five people. Israeli security forces were on high alert before Friday, the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as part of preparations for possible clashes near the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem. Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities have warned of a sharp escalation of violence, especially in the coming weeks, when Ramadan will rarely coincide with Easter and Easter. Also in May, during Ramadan, clashes between Palestinians and Israelis near the Damascus Gate helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. In a statement on its website on Thursday, Hamas praised the attack in Tel Aviv, calling it a “heroic operation” that “led to the killing of some occupation soldiers and Zionist settlers.” Steve Hendrix in Jerusalem and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City contributed to this exhibition.
