At least 3 fatally stabbed in rampage near Tel Aviv
JERUSALEM — A pair of Palestinian attackers went on a stabbing rampage in a town near Tel Aviv on Thursday night, killing at least three people and wounding four others before fleeing in a vehicle, Israeli authorities said.
Police launched a massive search for the assailants, setting up roadblocks and dispatching a helicopter. The stabbings, coming on Israel’s Independence Day, were the latest in a string of deadly attacks in Israeli cities in recent weeks.
“We will get our hands on the terrorists and their supportive environment, and they will pay the price,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said after huddling with senior security officials late Thursday.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared recently, with the attacks in Israel, military operations in the occupied West Bank and violence at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. The site, home to the Al Aqsa Mosque, was the scene of new unrest earlier Thursday.
Alon Rizkan, a medic with Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, described a “very difficult call” when he arrived at the scene in Elad, an ultraOrthodox town near Tel Aviv. He said he identified three dead people at various locations. At least four others were wounded, one critically, officials said.
Israeli media quoted police as saying there were two assailants, and just before midnight, police said they were still searching for the attackers. They called on the public to avoid the area, and urged people to report suspicious vehicles or people to them.
Israel marked its Independence Day on Thursday, a festive national holiday in which people typically hold barbecues and attend air shows.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered a closure on the West Bank, imposed ahead of the holiday and preventing Palestinians from entering Israel, to remain in effect until Sunday.
In Washington, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the attack appeared to be “the latest in what has been a string of despicable terrorist attacks that have rocked Israel.”
“Our commitment to our Israeli partners, to Israel’s security, that is ironclad,” he added.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government administers autonomous zones in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, condemned the attack. “The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians leads only to more deterioration at a time when all of us try to achieve stability and prevent escalation,” the official Wafa news agency quoted him as saying.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, praised the attack and linked it to violence at the Jerusalem holy site.
“The storming of AlAqsa Mosque can’t go unpunished,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said. “The heroic operation in Tel Aviv is a practical translation of what the resistance had warned against.”
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the third holiest site in Islam and is built on a hilltop that is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. It lies at the emotional heart of the conflict, and Palestinians and Israeli police have clashed there repeatedly in recent weeks.