Israel: manhunt after a new deadly attack near Tel Aviv

Europe 1 with AFP 10:55 a.m., May 6, 2022

Israeli police are conducting a manhunt on Friday the day after a fatal attack on three people in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, perpetrated on the anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state.

The attack - the sixth targeting Israelis since March 22 - occurred in Elad, where some of the 50,000 inhabitants are ultra-Orthodox Jews, in the center of the country.

Police appealed for information on the assailants' hideout, releasing photos and names of two Palestinians suspected of carrying out the attack, which also injured four, three of them seriously, according to Magen David Adom (MDA ), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross.

The two wanted men, Assad Youssef Al-Rafai, 19, and Tzabhi Amad Abu Shakir, 20, are from the village of Rummanah in the northern occupied West Bank, according to a police statement.

"The scene of the attack was complex," said Israeli rescuer Alon Rizkan of the MDA.

He himself saw a 40-year-old man dead near a roundabout, then another unconscious man in an adjacent park, whose death was finally pronounced, and another by his side who succumbed to his injuries.

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The three victims of the attack are Yonatan Habakuk, 44, and Boaz Gol, 49, both residents of Elad, and Oren Ben Yiftah, 35, a resident of Lod (center), Israeli Prime Minister Naftali announced on Twitter. Bennett, adding that "terrorists and their supporters will pay the price."

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced the closure until Sunday of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in order to "avoid the flight of terrorists" to this Palestinian territory.

"Heinous" attack

As helicopters hovered over the town of Elad on Thursday evening, women leaning over their balconies watched as funeral directors carried away the bodies of the victims.

The Palestinian armed Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad "celebrated" a "heroic" attack, without claiming it, in separate statements.

This is a "reaction" to recent tensions in Jerusalem.

For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned "the killing of Israeli civilians" which "leads to a deterioration of the situation", according to the Palestinian agency Wafa.

The attack was also condemned by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, who described it as "particularly heinous" according to his services.

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In total, since March 22, 18 people have been killed in anti-Israeli attacks, perpetrated by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out a series of operations in the occupied West Bank.

At least 26 Palestinians, including attackers, were killed.

And clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians have left nearly 300 injured in recent weeks on the esplanade of the Mosques, located in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, occupied since 1967 by Israel.

Tensions in Jerusalem 

"This operation (in Elad) bears witness to the anger of our people at the attacks of the occupation against the holy places. The storming of the al-Aqsa mosque cannot go unpunished", warned Hazem Qassem, word of Hamas, an Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants.

"The desecration by occupation forces (a name given to the Israeli police and army by Palestinians) and settler gangs in al-Aqsa has crossed all red lines," added Muhammad Hamid Abu Al-Hassan. , from the political office of the Islamic Jihad.

New clashes took place Thursday near the al-Aqsa mosque, on the esplanade of the Mosques where Jewish worshipers wanted to go again in large numbers on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. according to the Hebrew calendar, which coincided with the end of the Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Fitr.

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Israel-Palestine: why is the diplomatic solution "at an impasse"?

Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can visit the esplanade - Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's holiest site under its name "Temple Mount" - but without praying there.

A growing number of Jews are going there, and the fact that some of them pray surreptitiously there raises fears of a challenge to this status quo among many Muslims.

Over the past few weeks, the Israeli government has repeatedly expressed its unwillingness to change the status quo.