A Palestinian terrorist killed five people as he opened fire on passersby in the city of Bnei Brak, home to a large Jewish Orthodox community east of Tel Aviv. Tuesday night’s massacre makes it the third terror attack and the second mass shooting to hit Israel in eight days.
Two of the victims, aged 23 and 32, were Ukrainian nationals shot dead outside a grocery store. The two other victims, identified as Israeli citizens aged 30 and 36, also died at the scene.
The fifth fatality, a 32-year-old Christian Arab policeman, died later of his injuries in the hospital.
Israeli news reports said that the attacker was identified as a 27-year-old illegal Palestinian immigrant who had previously served a 6-month sentence for a terrorism-related offense.
Last Tuesday, a convicted ISIS terrorist killed four Israelis, including women and the elderly, and injured several others in a car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. On Sunday, two ISIS-linked gunmen killed two Israeli border guards, both aged 19, in the northern Israeli city of Hadera.
The wave of deadly Palestinian attacks comes as Israeli officials warn of more terrorist acts ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins next weekend. “The attack, the third deadly terror incident in a week, underlined concerns about an escalating wave of violence ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,” The Times of Israel noted on Monday.
The Israeli news website Ynetnews covered the last night’s terrorist attack:
At least five people were killed in a terror attack in the city of Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv – the third in a week.A Palestinian resident of the Jenin area in the northern West Bank, who was in Israel illegally, arrived in Bnei Brak on a motorcycle.He was equipped with an M-16 automatic rifle and was shot and killed by a police officer, on the scene.The attack took place soon after 8 pm when the streets were full with shoppers and pedestrians going about their business.A Magen David Adom paramedic said a suspected terrorist and a civilian were found shot dead on Herzl Street in Bnei Brak, where another person was also wounded. Another person was found shot dead inside a car and two others were killed on Bialik Street in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city.MDA medic Lipa Hirsch, who treated the wounded, said he and his team arrived quickly on the scene. “We heard the shots from the MDA station and went immediately in the direction of the gunfire,” he said. “On Herzl Street we noticed a 30-year-old man lying unconscious. He was without a pulse with gunshot wounds. We performed a life saving procedure but we were forced to declare him dead,” he said.”About 100 meters away, further down the street, we saw a 40-year-old man unconscious with gunshot wounds to his body. Another MDA team that arrived at the scene provided him with medical treatment and evacuated him to Beilinson Hospital in critical condition.”
Tuesday’s terrorist attack that killed innocent Israelis triggered joyous processions, pro-Hamas chanting, and celebratory gunfire in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus, the videos posted on social media show.
The gunman was praised for his “heroic” act by the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas. The Jerusalem Post reported:
Hamas praised the attack in a statement on its website. “Responding to the crimes and terrorism of the occupation is a legitimate right for all our people until the occupation is removed from our land,” it said.The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) blesses the heroic operation against the Zionist occupation soldiers in the so-called ‘Tel Aviv’ area, which led to the killing and wounding of a number of Zionist occupiers, and stresses that all the heroic operations carried out by our Palestinian people, in every inch of our occupied land, comes in the context of the natural and legitimate response to the terrorism of the occupation and its escalating crimes against our land, our people and our sanctities.”
Last year’s Ramadan was marked by widespread Palestinian rioting and violent attacks on Jews. The weekly Ramadan prayers on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount were used to incite violence and terror against Israelis. Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel followed the Palestinian street violence. Weeks later, the Gaza-based terrorist groups escalated their campaign, firing more than 4000 rockets aimed at Israeli towns and cities.
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