At least three people were killed this Thursday evening during an attack in Elad, an Israeli town located in the large suburbs of Tel Aviv, the latest to date targeting the Jewish state which is celebrating its 74th anniversary.
Police gave no details on the identity of the assailants and the circumstances of the attack, which according to the Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, also injured four people, including three seriously.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad "celebrated" a "heroic" attack, calling it a "reaction" to tensions in Jerusalem.
'The scene of the attack was complex,' says Israeli rescuer Alon Rizkan of the MDA, who says he saw a 40-year-old man dead near a roundabout, then another man unconscious in an adjacent park , who was eventually pronounced dead, and another by his side who succumbed to his injuries.
This sixth anti-Israeli attack since March 22 occurred in Elad (center), a city of around 50,000 inhabitants, including many ultra-Orthodox Jews, near Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian armed Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad “celebrated” a “heroic” attack, calling it a “reaction” to recent tensions in Jerusalem, but did not claim it.
Gaza and the West Bank sealed off
“We are looking for one or two terrorists,” Avi Bitton, police chief in central Israel, told Elad.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced a closure, until Sunday, of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in order to "prevent the flight of terrorists" to this Palestinian territory.
The Elad attack brings to 18 the number of people killed in anti-Israeli attacks since March 22, some carried out by Israeli Arabs and others by Palestinians.
In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out a series of operations in the occupied West Bank.
In total, at least 26 Palestinians, including assailants, have been killed since the start of this wave of anti-Israeli attacks.
“This operation (in Elad) testifies to the anger of our people at the attacks of the occupation against the holy places.
The storming of the Al-Aqsa mosque cannot go unpunished,” said Hazem Qassem, spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants.
The esplanade of the Mosques still at the center of tensions
"The desecration by occupation forces (the name given to the Israeli police and army by Palestinians) and settler gangs in Al-Aqsa has crossed all red lines," added Muhammad Hamid Abu Al-Hassan, of the political office of the Islamic Jihad.
At the same time, clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians left nearly 300 injured on the esplanade of the Mosques, in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, occupied since 1967 by Israel.
After a break of several days linked to the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Jewish worshipers went to the esplanade on Thursday, the day of the 74th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of the creation of the State of Israel. which coincided with the end of the Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Fitr.
Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can visit the esplanade - Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's holiest place under its name of "Temple Mount" - but without praying there.
However, a growing number of Jews are going there and the fact that some of them pray there surreptitiously, arousing fears of a challenge to this status quo among many Muslims.
Over the past few weeks, the Israeli government has repeatedly expressed its unwillingness to change the status quo.
Israel, which controls access to the site, maintained its reopening to Jews on Thursday despite calls from Palestinian officials and countries in the region who feared new clashes.
