MEE Staff
Middle East Eye / July 4, 2023
The attack carried out by a Palestinian comes as Israeli military continues a large-scale operation in Jenin.
A Palestinian on Tuesday rammed a pickup truck into pedestrians in Tel Aviv before carrying out a stabbing attack, wounding eight people, on the second day of Israel’s biggest military operation in the occupied West Bank in years.
The Palestinian, identified as 20-year-old Abed al-Wahab Khalaila from Hebron/Al-Khalil, was shot and killed by an armed civilian at the scene, Israeli police said.
CCTV footage circulating online shows the driver crashing into pedestrians at high speed at a bus stop. He is then seen exiting through a window, stabbing a man and chasing other people.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said Khalaila had entered Israel without a permit and had no record of security offences.
Since Monday, the Israeli military has been deploying drones, Apache helicopters, army bulldozers and ground forces in its worst attack on Jenin in two decades.
Residents of the camp have been left stunned at the sheer extent of the destruction carried out by Israeli bulldozers, which have levelled most of the streets surrounding the camp.
Piles of rubble line edges of the roads, while the infrastructure has been severely damaged, leaving the camp’s residents without water and electricity networks.
“Most of our homes were cut off from electricity at the beginning of the invasion, and we saw many water pipes exploded from under the streets, which were bulldozed and destroyed,” Muhammad Abu Talal, a resident of the camp, told Middle East Eye.
Around 3,000 Palestinian civilians fled their homes in the Jenin refugee camp on Monday night, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
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At least 7 hurt in Tel Aviv car-ramming and stabbing attack
Al-Jazeera / July 4, 2023
Three people in serious condition and suspect shot dead; Hamas praises attack as ‘initial response’ to Israel’s assault on Jenin.
At least seven people have been wounded in a suspected car-ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli police, on the second day of Israel’s largest military offensive in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in decades.
Israeli police said on Tuesday they had received a report about “a car that attacked a number of civilians” in north Tel Aviv and that the suspect “has been neutralized”. A medic who examined him at the scene told Israel’s Kan radio that he had been shot dead.
“It appears that the suspect was driving a vehicle travelling from south to north, rammed into pedestrians standing in the shopping centre and proceeded to get out of the vehicle to stab civilians with a sharp object,” police said, adding that three of those wounded were in a serious condition.
Hamas, the Palestinian group running the besieged Gaza Strip, praised the attack as a “heroic operation” that was an “initial response to the occupation’s crimes against our people in the Jenin refugee camp”.
“This is an implementation of what the [Palestinian] resistance confirmed – that the occupation will pay the price for its crimes,” Hazem Qasem, a spokesperson for the group, said in a statement.
“We praise the heroes of our people and the fighters in Jenin.”
In a later statement, Hamas said the attack was carried out by Hussein Khalaylah, whom it identified as one of its members.
Israel launched a ground and aerial assault on Jenin refugee camp on Monday morning, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens more.
The operation, which was still continuing on Tuesday, has been slammed by Palestinians as a “new war crime“.
SOURCE: AL-JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
