Another terrorist attack has rocked Israel. A Palestinian lone gunman shot indiscriminately at passers-by outside a bar in Tel Aviv. He was later killed in a firefight. The series of attacks falls in the middle of a government crisis.
Armed security forces are combing the streets and houses in search of the perpetrator who shot indiscriminately at passers-by in the middle of Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has put Israel on high alert after the fourth terrorist attack in just over two weeks. At the same time, Secretary of Defense Benny Gantz announced on Friday that military operations in the occupied West Bank would be expanded. The terrorists would pay a “high price,” Gantz said.
On Thursday, just after 9 p.m., a Palestinian shot indiscriminately at patrons in bars in central Tel Aviv. 2 people died and 13 others were injured, some seriously. For Israelis, the weekend begins on Thursday evening. The restaurants and bars on Dizengoff Street in the Mediterranean metropolis where the crime took place are usually packed.
Nine hours of hunting for the culprit
Television and video recordings from the time of the crime show guests and passers-by running away in panic and looking for cover in side streets and houses. Some hid in the basements of bars, in elevators or stairwells, or asked complete strangers to take them in. At first he didn’t even notice that he had been hit, one of the injured told an Israeli television station. When he heard the shots and the shattering glass in the bar, he just ran as fast as possible. Only at a safe distance did he notice that he had been hit in the back.
After the attack in downtown Tel Aviv, there is uncertainty.
The crime triggered one of the largest searches in Israel’s recent history. Police urged Tel Aviv residents to stay indoors. Meanwhile, TV stations showed eerie images of armed soldiers, special forces from the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and police combing houses and streets.
After a nine-hour search, security forces caught the gunman near a mosque in Jaffa. He was killed in an exchange of fire, the security forces said. The Shin Bet later identified him as Raad Hamza, a 28-year-old Palestinian from Jenin in the northern West Bank. The border crossing between Israel and the occupied territories around Jenin was then closed.
The perpetrator was a blank slate
Ten days ago, a Palestinian who also came from near Jenin killed four civilians and a police officer in Bnei Brak, a Tel Aviv suburb. The series of attacks since March 22 has so far claimed 17 lives, including the four attackers. However, there is no connection between the bloody crimes. Two were carried out by Islamic State sympathizers, the third by a Palestinian who had previously been imprisoned in Israel for membership of a Palestinian militant organization.
As after the previous crimes, radical Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip celebrated the assassination in Tel Aviv. According to the Shin Bet, Raad Hamza was a blank slate. There is no evidence of a connection to an organization, Hamza was not noticed and was never arrested.
Rescuers wipe away victims’ blood outside a bar on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv.
The President of the Palestinian Authority condemned the attack. The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians “only worsens the situation at a time when we are all striving for stability,” Mahmoud Abbas said. Muslims are currently celebrating the month of fasting, Ramadan, and almost every night there are minor clashes between young Palestinians and security forces at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. The Jewish Passover and Easter begin at the end of next week. All sides are trying to ease the situation.
In front of his supporters in Jerusalem on April 6, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu called on the right-wing camp to close ranks in order to force the resignation of the Bennett government.
Opposition leader Netanyahu smells morning air
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked recently stated that the perpetrators were lone perpetrators. Military operations in the West Bank, like last week when three extremist Palestinians were killed in an operation near Jenin, are of little use against them, especially since two of the perpetrators were Israelis. But the government is under pressure. In addition to the attacks, she is also confronted with the loss of her majority.
In the middle of the week, a member of parliament from Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party turned his back on the governing coalition. For the time being, the national-religious MP Idit Silman justified her decision to withdraw support from the government with a question in the inner-Jewish culture war: specifically, it was about leavened bread in hospitals during the Passover holiday.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz from the left-liberal Meretz party had ordered that the hospitals implement a Supreme Court ruling and not search the bags of visitors for leavened food. This violates the Jewish character of Israelis, Silman was outraged. In Israel, however, there is speculation that their decision is really about the course of the government in the occupied territories and settlement building.
In any case, with Silman’s resignation, the government lost its narrow majority of one vote. The heterogeneous coalition of eight parties is still holding. But the leader of the opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial on charges of corruption and has never come to terms with his loss of power, senses the dawn. He railed against the coalition as best he could, accusing it of failure in all areas. After the attacks in recent weeks, “a strong” hand is needed, Netanyahu said on Friday. By that he means himself.
Behind the scenes, Netanyahu’s Likud party is trying to poach MPs from the government’s right-wing camp. Another election would be the last thing Israel needs in the already tense situation. After the recent attack in Tel Aviv, Bennett urged the Israelis to remain calm. Hysteria is not a plan, the security forces are doing their job.