A man opened fire this Sunday in several locations inside Israel, near the border with the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, killing at least one person and injuring five others. A total of four successive shootings have been recorded, which Israeli authorities describe as a terrorist attack. The Israeli army has killed the suspected assailant and is searching for possible collaborators, after urging the local population to lock themselves in their homes.
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The incident took place in Kochav Yair and other surrounding Israeli localities. It is an area bordering the West Bank, a territory separated from Israel by a wall and with strong security measures, and located half an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city. Police have identified the assailant as a resident of Taybeh, an Israeli municipality where the majority of the population is Palestinian with Israeli nationality.
Despite what was initially stated, the Israeli army clarified late in the morning that it had not yet confirmed the existence of a second assailant.
The investigation indicates that the attacker opened fire from a moving vehicle with which he traveled through different municipalities. A strong deployment of ambulances and police has filled the villages where the shootings were recorded, attending to the injured while helicopters maintained the search from the sky.
Security forces say they have found the crime weapon, a submachine gun they describe as “homemade,” and are carrying out raids in Taybeh and in communities in the area, without specifying whether the search extends to Palestinian municipalities in the West Bank.
Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, armed Palestinian organizations with a presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have celebrated the attack without claiming responsibility, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has initiated an emergency meeting to assess the situation, according to his office.
“Following reports of multiple firearm incidents, the Israeli army, in coordination with security forces, has deployed to the areas of Sal’it [an Israeli settlement within the West Bank] and Tzur Yitzhak,” the army stated in a communiqué, citing villages near Kochav Yair. “Soldiers have initiated extensive searches for additional terrorists and are providing medical treatment to the injured,” it added.
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In parallel, Israeli media reported that “terrorist infiltration” alarms had been triggered in several localities in the area, where some crossings to access the West Bank are located.
Initial investigations suggest that the attack began at a gas station in Kochav Yair, inside Israel, where two people were injured — one of them seriously. The alleged assailant then moved to Tzur Yitzhak, where he injured two more people. Afterwards, in Tzur Natan, he killed a man aged around 30, according to the Israeli ambulance service, and injured another aged around 40.
According to some reports, there was also an exchange of gunfire with security personnel at an Israeli settler outpost in the West Bank. This is Sal’it, located less than a kilometer from the villages attacked in Israel and the place the army headed to after becoming aware of the incident.
“Everything happened in an instant,” says Ron, a resident of Tzur Yitzhak, in statements to the Israeli newspaper Yedioh Ahronoth. The sirens, he recounts, began to sound and residents received a warning of possible “infiltration.” “Everyone went home, and the schools [which open on Sunday in Israel] were waiting for instructions,” he adds.
Magen David Adom, the Israeli emergency service, says it has taken several injured people to hospitals in the area. Paramedics could do nothing to save the only confirmed fatality so far, a 35-year-old man whom they found already “without signs of life and with penetrating wounds.”
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