The Israeli security services announced on Friday morning that they had killed the perpetrator of the attack - which killed two Israelis and wounded 14 others on Thursday evening in the heart of Tel Aviv - after several hours of searching and chasing.

Security officials said on Friday morning that the attacker - a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank - was killed near a mosque in the Jaffa neighborhood, after his location was identified.

The Shin Bet security service said that Israeli officers found the man near a mosque in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, and that the attacker was killed during an exchange of fire.

"After a difficult night and after many hours of work for the Israeli police, internal security services and the army, we succeeded this morning (...) in tightening the noose around the terrorist who was killed in the crossfire," Inspector General of the Israeli Police Yaakov Shabtai said in a statement, noting that no one was injured. A policeman during the operation.

The Shin Bet identified the attacker as a 28-year-old Palestinian from Jenin in the occupied West Bank, who had been in Israel illegally.

Israeli media reported that his name is Raad Hazem, a Palestinian from the Jenin area in the northern West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, "We maintain the highest levels of alert, and the war against terrorism is long and arduous," while Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stressed that "military and intelligence activity will expand and the perpetrators of terrorist attacks will pay a heavy price."

The heroic Palestinian martyr Raad Fathi Hazem, the executor of the heroic Tel Aviv operation on Friday night, which resulted in the killing of 3 and wounding 12 others of the occupation soldiers and its terrorist settlers. com/lGXgaPLBUa

— Gaza Now #Urgent 🚨 (@GazaNownews) April 8, 2022

Late Thursday evening, at the start of the weekend in Israel, the attacker entered a bar on Tel Aviv's busiest Dizenkoff Street and opened fire, killing two people and seriously wounding several others before fleeing the scene.

Ichilov Hospital in the city stated that two people had died so far, and the director of the hospital confirmed in statements to Israeli media that medical teams were striving to rescue 4 seriously injured people.

And Israeli radio reported that at least 14 people were injured.

Pictures documented by the surveillance camera showed the moment the shooting took place inside a cafe on Dizenkov Street in Tel Aviv, causing panic among shoppers who were present at the scene of the attack.

Immediately, the authorities warned residents not to leave their homes, while hundreds of Israeli officers combed the streets in search of him, with the help of a helicopter.

hours of searching

Earlier, the Israeli Army Radio said that more than 1,000 police and border guards were deployed in and around the shooting site.

The Israeli radio said that the army and police deployed checkpoints in the Wadi Ara area, on the road to Haifa and near the entrances to the West Bank.

Amichai Stein, a journalist for the official Kan channel, said that a squad of Israeli special forces deployed in the streets of Tel Aviv following the operation, and the Israeli Channel 12 reported that public transportation services in the city had stopped due to the security situation.

Haaretz newspaper said that the army is deployed in Tel Aviv to support the police in the search and chase operation, and an Israeli security source also said that thousands of soldiers, police and special forces are combing Tel Aviv in search of the attacker.

Israeli journalist Bar Peleg of the Haaretz newspaper published videos that he said showed a building surrounded at the scene of the attack.

For his part, the Tel Aviv police chief said, "Indications are that the operation is a terrorist attack, but we are investigating in other directions."

He added - in statements carried by the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation - that the shooter disappeared from the scene of the attack, and fled to one of the alleys in the area.

This operation comes despite the state of alert experienced by the Israeli police and the reinforcements that have pushed it since the occurrence of 3 operations inside Israeli cities within one week, killing 11 people in total, the last of which was the Bnei Brak operation east of Tel Aviv on March 29.

Since then, the Israeli occupation forces have killed a number of Palestinian youths during incursions into Jenin in the West Bank, and arrests and repression continue in the Bab al-Amud area of ​​occupied Jerusalem, where tensions increased during the month of Ramadan.


Reactions

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military arm of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), mourned the perpetrator of the Tel Aviv operation, Raad Hazem, son of Jenin camp.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said that "the Tel Aviv operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people."

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said that the attack was a natural and legitimate response to the escalation of the occupation's crimes against the Palestinian people, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Islamic Jihad movement considered that the return of the commando operations inside the Israeli depth is the result of the aggression that crossed all borders.

Activists broadcast on social media, video clips of a march in the city of Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, to celebrate the news of the Tel Aviv operation.

On the other hand, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said - in a tweet via Twitter - that she was "horrified" by the news of the Tel Aviv attack, and added that the United Kingdom stood with Israel against "this abhorrent violence."

In the first American reaction, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed his sadness, and said he was following developments closely.

"We will remain in contact with the Israeli partners, with whom we stand firmly in the face of terrorism and blind violence," he added.

West Bank tension

In the occupied West Bank, the occupation army arrested two Palestinians in the early hours of Friday morning after shooting them.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that an Israeli force shot two Palestinians at the entrance to the town of Turmusaya, north of Ramallah. Witnesses explained that the two civilians sustained injuries whose nature is not yet known.

They added that the Israeli occupation army arrested the two Palestinian citizens, without further details.

At the same time, settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles in several locations in the West Bank.

And Anadolu Agency reported that the settlers closed the Nablus-Ramallah road, and threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, causing damage to a number of them.

West of Ramallah, settlers blocked the Ein Ayoub road, while others threw stones at Palestinian vehicles on the Bethlehem-Hebron road (south).

Recently, settlers' attacks have increased in the West Bank, as the Palestinians accuse the Israeli authorities of condoning these attacks as part of official efforts to intensify settlements in the occupied territories.