An attacker opened fire in a crowded restaurant on a main Tel Aviv boulevard on Thursday, police and hospital officials said. At least two people were killed and several others were wounded. Police said there were “indications” it was a terrorist attack, marking the fourth deadly assault in Israel in less than three weeks at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
“A terrorist opened fire at short range and then fled on foot. Several people are wounded,” police spokesman Eli Levy said on Channel 13 television. “Don’t leave your homes. Don’t stick your heads out of the window. Stay off your balconies.”
At nearby Ichilov hospital, Mark Malfiev, 27, was being treated for a gunshot wound. He said he was passing by the bar when the shooting started.
“I saw the window shatter, people suddenly started running, and I felt getting hit in the back,” he told reporters from a hospital bed. “I felt a lot of blood. I saw blood.”
Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders have held a series of meetings in recent weeks, and Israel has taken a number of steps aimed at calming tensions, including issuing thousands of additional work permits for Palestinians from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Prior to the attack, Israel had said it would allow women, children and men over 40 from the occupied West Bank to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem on Friday, the first weekly prayers of Ramadan. Tens of thousands were expected to attend.
The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and sits on a hilltop that is the most sacred site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. The holy site has long been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The recent attacks appear to have been carried out by lone assailants, perhaps with the help of accomplices. No Palestinian militant group has claimed them, though Hamas has welcomed the attacks.
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