Terrorist attack in Tel Aviv: the attacker was “neutralized” and three civilians were injured in a shootout

Three people were injured in a shooting in Tel Aviv on Thursday, Israeli police said, calling the incident a “terrorist attack” in the midst of an escalation of violence in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“A report of a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv has been received. One suspect shot three civilians who were wounded“, the police said in a statement, which specified that the attacker “was neutralized by police officers”.

While no details about the attacker’s identity have been officially released, Israeli authorities often describe armed attacks committed by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs with nationalist motives as a “terrorist attack,” the agency said. EFE extension.

THE Jewish News Agency released a video, circulating on Palestinian social networks, in which a man invokes jihad (holy war), a few hours before the attack.

According to the same medium, he was identified as Mu’taz al-Khwaja, 23, who reported to Hamas. He was an illegal resident and had been to prison twice.

For his part, the Israeli Minister of National Security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, wrote on Twitter: “I congratulate the fighter of the Border Guard (Israel’s militarized police), who in a courageous action eliminated the despicable terrorist”.

For its part, Israeli emergency services Magen David Adom reported that the three victims, in their twenties, were transferred to Ichilov hospital: one in critical condition and unconscious, another in serious condition and another with poor prognosis. reserved.

The attack, perpetrated in Dizengoff street, in the heart of Tel Aviv, took place while thousands of people demonstrated in the city against the government of the Israeli prime ministerBenjamin Netanyahu.

Protest organizers will urge participants to stop the marches and “go home”.

Netanyahu, on an official visit to Italy, reported the incident in a statement.

“Tonight there was another terrorist attack in the heart of Tel Aviv. We send, first of all, our wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured, and we encourage the security forces and the police who are fighting the terrorists (… .) We will continue to build our nation and deepen our roots,” he said.

Netanyahu, who has led the most right-wing government in Israel’s history since last December along with his ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox partners, often refers to the expansion of Jewish settler settlements in the occupied West Bank when he talks about “deepening one’s roots.”

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen a serious escalation of violence with 85 dead since the beginning of 2023.

The deadly attacks by Palestinians and Jewish settlers, as well as continued Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank that led to clashes with militants, killed 71 Palestinians and 14 people on the Israeli side, many of them civilians.

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