A car-ramming incident in Tel Aviv resulted in the death of an Italian tourist and injuries to five other individuals on Friday. The incident occurred just hours after two Israeli sisters were killed in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank.
The attacks have further escalated Israeli-Palestinian tensions, which were already heightened due to Israeli police raids in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque earlier this week. These tensions led to a night of cross-border strikes in Gaza and Lebanon.
Israel responded to a barrage of rockets with attacks on targets linked to Hamas in Gaza and southern Lebanon. However, the fighting entered a lull on Friday.
The car-ramming and shooting attacks have highlighted how volatile the situation remains. The latest attack involved a car plowing into a group of foreign tourists on a street near a popular bike and walking path on a Tel Aviv promenade. The driver was an Arab citizen of Israel from the town of Kafr Qassem and was shot dead by a nearby police officer when he tried to pull a gun.
The victims were all foreign tourists, and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed that an Italian had been killed and other Italians may have been among the wounded.
Earlier on Friday, two Israeli sisters were killed and their mother wounded in a shooting attack near the Jewish settlement of Hamra in the Jordan Valley. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, ‘Our enemies are putting us to the test again,’ after visiting the site of the attack with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
The U.S. State Department condemned the attacks, stating, ‘the targeting of innocent civilians of any nationality is unconscionable.’ Soldiers are now hunting for the gunman, and Netanyahu has ordered border police reserves and additional military forces to be mobilized to confront the wave of attacks.
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