Tel-Aviv Cafe shooting on Jan 1, 2016Two people were killed and at least seven wounded Friday when a gunman opened fire on a pub and nearby cafe in central Tel Aviv, but the motive was not immediately clear.
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Netanyahu, who arrived at the scene of Friday’s attack on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, said authorities will “dramatically increase” police enforcement in Arab towns.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio on Monday that “there’s no reason to think that the gunman [from Friday’s attack on Dizengoff Street] is still in Tel Aviv and not in some other part of the country”.
Security has been tightened at schools in Tel Aviv, as Israeli forces continue the manhunt for a gunman who killed two people last Friday.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said five people were wounded, two of whom died in hospital. She says police and special forces searched for the shooter throughout the night.
The attacker has been identified as a 29-year-old member of Israel’s Arab minority from the Arara village in northern Israel.
The shooting came at a time of heightened unease in Israel and Palestinian territories, with a recent wave of violence that has included stabbings and other kinds of attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers. He was identified by his father, who spotted him at surveillance footage which surfaced on Israeli media outlets, and reported his identity to the authorities.
As searches continued for the perpetrator of the shooting, the Tel Aviv Municipality said that it would deploy more security guards, although it encouraged the city’s residents to adhere to their daily routine.
On Saturday, several funerals of Palestinians, who allegedly carried out attacks on Israelis, took place in Hebron’s West Bank.
Alon Bakal, 26, and Shimon Ruimi, 30, were both killed in the attacks. But police said there was a “strong possibility that this was a terrorist attack”, though a report in the “Haaretz” newspaper, which interviewed some of the suspects relatives, suggested he wanted to avenge his cousin’s murder by border police.
Haim Pinto was closing his jewellery store near the pub when the shooting began.
As another person runs by, the shooter slide-steps to keep pace, still pointing the gun.
“I did not raise him in this manner and I am sorry for what he did”, the father said, according to Reuters.
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Israel has seen a wave of Palestinian road assaults since October, fuelled in half by Muslim anger over stepped-up Jewish visits to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque complicated, additionally sacred to Jews, in addition to the shortage of any progress in the direction of peace with Israel.
