[tta_listen_btn listen_text=”Audio” pause_text=”Pause” resume_text=”Resume” replay_text=”Replay”]
A Palestinian rammed a pickup truck into pedestrians in Tel Aviv and then went on a stabbing rampage, wounding eight people on Tuesday in an attack claimed by the Hamas militant group.
The 20-year-old Palestinian, from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was shot dead by an armed civilian, police said. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said he entered Israel without a permit and had no record of security offences.
Hamas claimed him as a member, saying he struck Israel’s commercial capital in retaliation for the ongoing military raid in the flashpoint West Bank town of Jenin, in which 10 Palestinians have been killed during clashes with local gunmen.
CCTV video circulated online showed a pickup truck mounting a pavement and bicycle lane outside a mall at high speed, striking at least two people. The driver is seen exiting through a window, stabbing a cafe-goer and chasing other people with a knife in hand.
“I saw the grey pickup pull up at peak speed and ram the bus stop, powerfully. In the first seconds you think it could have been a mistake by the driver,” said Liron Bahash, a sports teacher who was at the scene on a lunch break.
“He exited through the window, not the door, like in a movie, with a knife in hand and started chasing civilians. Now you understand it’s an attack. We ran for our lives,” Bahash told Reuters.
Hamas said in a statement: “This heroic (Tel Aviv) operation is an act of self-defence in the face of the ongoing Zionist massacre in Jenin, the crimes of displacement, killing and destruction executed by occupation forces.”
Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said eight people were injured, one seriously, and some with knife wounds.
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir came to the scene and repeated his call for citizens to carry weapons in order to thwart street attacks.
“Once Israel began its activity in Jenin, we knew that terrorism will try to rear its head,” he said.
