JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman killed at least four people in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood outside of Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, the latest in a surge of attacks in Israel this month.
The shooting was the fifth attack in less than two weeks, and heightened fears of a wave of violence over the next month, when the rare convergence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter is expected to raises tensions further between Israelis and Palestinians.
A spokesman for Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency medical service, said that his colleagues had counted four victims and were taking a fifth to the hospital in serious condition.
The gunman arrived in Bnei Brak, a city on the eastern edge of Tel Aviv, by motorcycle or scooter, before continuing on foot and firing at passers-by with what appeared to be a heavy automatic weapon, witnesses told Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster.
Video broadcast by Kan showed a gunman firing at bystanders and a bicycle rider, using an assault rifle. At one point he shouted to a driver in Hebrew to “stop,” before opening fire into the car.
The shooter then drove to a second nearby location, where he was shot and killed by the police, a police spokesman said.
The gunman was a Palestinian from the northern West Bank who was jailed for six months in 2013 for arms trafficking and membership in a terrorist group, Kan reported.
One emergency responder, Menachem Englander, who lives yards from the attack, narrowly avoided being shot himself after leaving his home upon hearing the first gunshots.
“I immediately went out to the street and saw a terrorist pointing a weapon at me,” Mr. Englander said in a statement published by Magen David Adom. “By a miracle his weapon jammed and he couldn’t shoot.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Source : Nytimes
