Gunman kills 2 at bar in Tel Aviv
Motive unclear in brazen daytime attack
• A gunman opened fire outside a popular bar in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon, killing two people and wounding at least three others before fleeing t he scene, police said.
The motive for the shooting spree, which took place on a busy main street, was not immediately clear, police said.
While the gunman’s motivations were not clear, Israeli media reported a Qur’an had been found in a bag he had left in a grocery store before beginning his rampage. The gunman was still at large Friday night, several hours after the mid-afternoon shooting.
Is r aeli C hannel 10 TV showed CCTV footage of the incident, obtained from a health food shop next to the bar. It shows a man with short hair, glasses and a black bag over his shoulder scooping up some nuts, putting them in a plastic bag, then emptying them back. The man walks toward the entrance of the store, placing his backpack on a shopping cart and taking a gun out of it. He steps outside and starts shooting, after which he runs away.
His main target appeared to be the pub, the Simta, whose manager was killed, Israeli news media reported.
Channel 10’s defence analyst Alon Ben-David said the gunman was an Israeli Arab and that the attacker’s father had seen his son on television and notified authorities. He said the shooter’s calm demeanour and the way he was holding and shooting the gun show he was well-trained. A Qur’an was found later in the attacker’s bag, he said. The Associated Press could not independently confirm those details.
“I heard something like 10 shots,” a man who gave his name only as Avi told Ynet, an Israeli news website. “I was next to one of the cafés. I saw people running in the street and wounded sprawled on the street.”
Haim Pinto, 40, the owner of a nearby jewelry store, said a woman ran toward him screaming: “There’s a terrorist. Run!” Pinto hid in his store’s bathroom and emerged after the shooting stopped.
“When I walked out, I saw the mess: A person lying on the road, full of blood, and the other store near the pub destroyed, with all its windows blown out,” he said.
Channel 10 spoke to a man it identified only as Ahmed who the TV station said was a relative of the shooter. The man described the shooter as “traumatized” after a cousin was killed by police in 2006, and who had served time in Israeli prison after allegedly grabbing an officer’s gun.
Residents of the village of Arara in northern Israel told media they recognized the shooter and said he was from their village. They condemned the attack and called on him to turn himself in.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said five people were wounded in the attack, two of whom died in hospital. She said a massive manhunt was underway for the shooter.
Israeli security forces rushed into nearby streets. One police officer, an assault rifle hanging from her shoulder, leaped onto a man’s bicycle — shouting, “Get out of the way!” — to navigate the crowded streets, according to Ben Hartman, a reporter for The Jerusalem Post who lives nearby and rushed to
I saw people running in the street and wounded sprawled on the street
the scene.
Dozens of people gathered as plainclothes security officers, riot police officers and intelligence agents cordoned off and canvassed the area, which was strewn with shards of glass.
The attack comes amid more than three months of almost daily Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. On the Israeli side, 21 people have died, mostly in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. That’s without counting the victims in Friday’s attack. At least 131 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, 90 of them identified by Israel as assailants. The rest died in clashes with security forces.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai visited the wounded in hospital and later said he spoke with those who were able to talk. He said that inside the bar, “friends were celebrating a birthday and a man opened fire at them from the outside.”
Later, police said an Arab Israeli man was found near the shooting scene with a gunshot wound and later died of his wounds in hospital. The police said an investigation is underway and that it is not clear whether that man is in any way connected to the bar shooting.
Israel’s Arabs, who make up a fifth of the country’s 8.4 million population, enjoy full rights but have long complained of discrimination and unfair treatment in areas such as housing and employment.