“Israel is facing a wave of murderous Arab terror,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement Tuesday.
On Sunday, two Palestinian citizens of Israel shot dead two police officers in the northern city of Hadera, an attack that coincided with a summit between Israeli and Arab diplomats in the Negev desert. The Islamic State terrorist militia, which has only carried out a handful of attacks in Israel, claimed responsibility for the shooting. Last week, another Palestinian-Israeli, previously convicted of his Islamic State ties, stabbed and killed four Israelis in the southern city of Beer Sheva.
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In Bnei Brak, the attack began just before 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday, authorities said. Israeli television broadcast amateur footage showing the gunman walking through the city, gunning down two people, then riding a motorcycle and fatally shooting two others before being shot dead by an Israeli police officer. The gunman fired back, injuring the officer, who later succumbed to his wounds in hospital.
Menachem Englander, a local paramedic with the Israel National Ambulance Service, said in a post on Twitter that after hearing gunshots Tuesday night, he “immediately went into the street and saw a terrorist point a gun at me.”
“Miraculously, his gun jammed and he couldn’t shoot,” Englander said. “I immediately went back to my house, locked my door and reported to emergency services.”
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The suspected gunman was a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank city of Yabad who had been in Israel illegally, Israeli media reported.
After the attack, Bnei Brak and neighboring communities said they would close schools and construction sites, where Palestinian workers are often employed informally without permits.
Israeli Police Chief Kobi Shabtai has raised the nationwide alert level to the highest possible level for the first time since Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in May. This conflict was sparked in part by bloody clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in Jerusalem during Ramadan.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, released a statement praising Tuesday’s attack as a “heroic action against the occupation of Tel Aviv.”
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority said the “killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians will only further worsen the situation as we try to achieve stability on the eve of Ramadan and the Jewish and Christian holidays.” ”