Israeli security forces kill Tel Aviv gunman in shootout

Agencies | Tel Aviv

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A gunman who allegedly killed two people in Tel Aviv and sent the city into lockdown died Friday in a shootout with Israeli security forces who hunted him all night, police said.

“We succeeded this morning, in operational and intelligence cooperation, in closing a circle and eliminating the terrorist by exchange of fire,” police commissioner Major General Yaakov (Kobi) Shabtai in a statement.

The Shin Bet security agency said agents and special forces found the attacker “hiding near a mosque in Jaffa”, referring to the historically Arab quarter of Tel Aviv.

Israeli public radio identified the alleged attacker as a man in his late 20s from the Jenin refugee camp in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The attacker had shot at revellers at a busy bar in central Tel Aviv. Police had closed roads and ordered public transportation shut down as they hunted for the suspect with more than 1,000 officers and Israeli soldiers.

Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, which was treating eight people injured in the shooting, said Friday morning that one of the victims was “in critical condition with an immediate risk to his life”.

A witness at a neighbouring bar described hearing dozens of bullets as terrified patrons scurried to seek shelter.

This was the fourth fatal attack in Israeli cities in two weeks, with 13 people killed in the violence.

Last week, the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank after a man from the area killed five people, including two Ukrainians in the Bnei Brak Orthodox city near Tel Aviv.

Three fighters from a Palestinian armed extremist movement were killed in exchanges of fire linked to these raids.