Three injured in attack in Tel Aviv: Israeli police

TEL AVIV – Three people were shot dead and injured in an attack by a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas in Tel Aviv on Thursday, Israeli police said.

The shooting took place around 8:40 p.m. (1840 GMT) on Dizengoff Avenue, a popular nightlife spot in central Tel Aviv, where three people were killed in a Palestinian attack in April 2022.

“The three victims of today’s attack in Tel Aviv are still alive, which corrects the earlier statement that one of them was pronounced dead,” Israel Police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told AFP.

In a statement, Hamas said the attack was carried out by a member of its armed wing.

During an official visit to Rome, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wished “the injured a speedy recovery” in a short televised speech.

Israel Police said a suspect shot a pedestrian before officers neutralized him.

“I heard shots and saw people running away. I immediately loaded my gun and ran to the scene,” David Friedman, a police officer who helped shoot the attacker, told AFP.

At one point “I fired three rounds at him, (a colleague) also fired three rounds and when he fell he was shot again so he wouldn’t get up again,” he added.

Israel’s Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir congratulated “the police officer who, in a brave act, eliminated the heinous terrorist and saved many lives.”

The Magen David Adom rescue service announced that the three injured had been taken to the hospital.

“We evacuated the three with gunshot wounds, one of them in critical condition, one seriously wounded and one slightly wounded,” Eli Bin, director of Magen David Adom, told Israel’s Kan TV.

– “De-escalate” –

Three armed Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military operation in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

Several armed Palestinian groups on Tuesday demanded revenge for the recent deaths of six Palestinians in an Israeli army raid in the northern West Bank.

During a brief visit to Tel Aviv on Thursday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called for “the need to de-escalate, defuse tensions and restore calm, particularly ahead of the Passover and Ramadan holidays.”

In Beitar Illit, a West Bank Jewish settlement southwest of Jerusalem, army experts said bomb disposal experts detonated a suspicious package found on a bus Thursday night.

Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 76 Palestinians, 12 civilians and an Israeli police officer, as well as a Ukrainian woman, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli and Palestinian sources.