In the evening, residents of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox city on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, then of the neighboring town of Ramat Gan, reported a man driving in a car and opening fire on passers-by.
Police said they shot the assailant without revealing his identity. But local media identified him as Dia Hamarshah, a Palestinian who had spent four years in Israeli prisons and hailed from Yaabad in the northern occupied West Bank.
“We unfortunately found the death of five people,” Elie Bin, director of Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, told the Kan channel.
The police were present in force in the evening in Bnei Brak, according to AFP journalists on the spot.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was to bring together senior security officials in the evening following the new attacks which were not immediately claimed.
In Yaabad, witnesses told AFP that men were distributing sweets in the evening as a “celebration” following the attacks.
The ruling Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza said in a statement that “this operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation once morest the rights of our people and our land and our holy places”.
Jihadist attacks
Sunday in Hadera, in the north of Israel, two police officers, including a Franco-Israeli, were killed in a shooting claimed by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS). It was hailed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the second Palestinian armed Islamist movement, and Lebanese Hezbollah.
Hamas then ruled that the attack had been “carried out in response to the normalization summit on our land”, in reference to an unprecedented meeting organized on Sunday and Monday on Israeli soil between heads of diplomacy American, Israeli and four Arab countries.
Israeli police identified the assailants who were shot as Arab Israeli IS operatives traveling from Umm al-Fahm, an Arab town in northern Israel where authorities made arrests on the heels of them.
On March 22, in Beersheva (south), four Israelis – two men and two women – were killed in a knife and ramming attack perpetrated by a man inspired by the ideology of the IS group.
The assailant, who was shot dead, was a teacher sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning to travel to Syria to fight in ISIS and for apologizing sermons.
Reduce tension
These attacks come at a time when meetings are increasing in an attempt to ease tensions as Ramadan approaches, the month of Muslim fasting which is due to begin at the end of the week.
In 2021, clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators during Ramadan in Jerusalem, notably on the esplanade of the Mosques, led to a deadly 11-day war between Hamas, in power in Gaza, and the Israeli army.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz held talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman on Tuesday, ahead of a similar visit on Wednesday by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
In front of Mr. Gantz, the king called “to remove any obstacle to the prayer of Muslims on the esplanade of the Mosques (in East Jerusalem) and to prevent provocations which might lead to an escalation”, indicated the royal palace.
According to a statement from his office, Mr. Gantz discussed with the king the “measures that Israel intends to take with a view to guaranteeing the freedom to pray in Jerusalem” and in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, during Ramadan. .
He also underlined “the importance of maintaining regional stability and the need to combat terrorism”.
