At least five dead in attacks near Tel Aviv

Europe 1 with AFP 06:06, March 30, 2022

At least five people were killed Tuesday in attacks near the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv, the third in a week in Israel, facing a wave of violence that worries the authorities in the approach of large gatherings on the sidelines of the holidays of Ramadan.

In the evening, residents of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, then of the neighboring town of Ramat Gan, reported a man driving in a car and opening fire on passers-by.

Eleven dead in one week in Israel

"It's sad and it's scary, it had never happened in Bnei Brak. It's not possible that in less than a week we have eleven dead in three different cities," he told AFP. Shira, a 25-year-old waitress living in this town.

Police said they shot the assailant without revealing his identity.

But local media identified him as Dia Hamarshah, a Palestinian who had spent four years in Israeli prisons and hailed from Yaabad in the occupied West Bank.

In Yaabad, witnesses told AFP that men distributed sweets in the evening as a "celebration" after the attacks.

"Such acts of violence can never be justified and must be condemned by all," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement from his spokesman.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the violence.

"The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians only further aggravates the situation as we all strive to achieve stability," he said in a statement.

Israel "facing a wave of deadly Arab terrorism"

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gathered senior security officials in the evening after the attacks, which killed at least five people, including a 32-year-old officer, Amir Khoury, an Israeli Arab who participated in the operation to kill the assailant. and called a "hero" by the police.

"The security forces are at work. We will fight terrorism with an iron fist (...). Israel is facing a wave of deadly Arab terrorism," said Naftali Bennett.

The two previous attacks, on March 22 and Sunday, were perpetrated by Israeli Arabs linked to the jihadist movement.

For Hamas, a "natural response to the crimes of the occupation"

In the aftermath, the Israeli police said they were in "counter-terrorism" mode, and the army deployed reinforcements in the occupied West Bank.

Reacting to the attacks on Tuesday evening, which have not been claimed, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in Gaza and rival of the secular Fatah of Mahmoud Abbas, affirmed in a press release that "this operation (was) a natural answer to the crimes of the occupation against the rights of our people and our land and our holy places".

Sunday in Hadera, in the north of Israel, two police officers, including a Franco-Israeli, were killed in a shooting claimed by the Islamic State organization (IS).

Hamas then judged that the attack had been "carried out in response to the normalization summit on our land", in reference to an unprecedented meeting organized on Sunday and Monday on Israeli soil between heads of diplomacy American, Israeli and four Arab countries.

Israeli police identified the assailants who were shot as Israeli Arab IS operatives from Umm al-Fahm, an Arab town in northern Israel.

On March 22, in Beersheva (south), four Israelis - two men and two women - were killed in a stabbing and car-ramming attack perpetrated by a teacher sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.

Convictions abroad

Abroad, Germany warned of a "spiral of violence", while the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken said "strongly" condemn this "terrorist" attack.

These attacks come at a time when meetings are increasing in an attempt to ease tensions as Ramadan approaches, the month of Muslim fasting which is due to begin at the end of the week.

In 2021, clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators during Ramadan in Jerusalem, notably on the esplanade of the Mosques, a Muslim holy place under the administration of Jordan, had led to a deadly eleven-day war between Hamas, in power in Gaza, and the Israeli army.

Seeking to ease the situation during Ramadan, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz held talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman on Tuesday, ahead of a similar visit on Wednesday by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

In front of Benny Gantz, the king called "to remove any obstacle to the prayer of Muslims on the esplanade of the Mosques (in East Jerusalem) and to prevent provocations which could lead to an escalation".