One tourist killed and seven wounded in car ramming attack in Tel Aviv

NepalPress

April 8, 2023

An Italian tourist has been killed and seven other people wounded in a suspected car ramming attack near a beach in Tel Aviv, Israeli medics say, BBC reported.

Italy’s foreign minister said Israel had identified the man killed as Italian citizen Alessandro Parini.

Footage from the scene showed an overturned car near a promenade and an Israeli police officer opening fire.

Local police said the suspected attacker had been shot dead by officers.

The attack comes after two British-Israeli sisters were killed and their mother injured in a shooting in the occupied West Bank earlier on Friday.

Police in Tel Aviv said at 21:25 local time (19:25 BST) a 45-year-old man drove a Kia car along the city’s beachside boardwalk, hitting several pedestrians before overturning on the lawn of the Charles Clore Garden.

They said a police officer at a nearby petrol station heard the commotion and, after running to the scene, saw the driver of the car “trying to reach for what looked like a rifle-like object that was with him” and then “neutralized him”.

The Israeli ambulance service said that, aside from the alleged perpetrator, there were a total of eight casualties from the attack and that all were tourists.

Of those wounded, three suffered moderate injuries and four sustained only light injuries, it said.

Writing on Twitter, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her “deep sorrow” at Mr Parini’s death and described the attack as “cowardly”.

Following the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mobilised police and army reservists as part of efforts to counter terrorism, his office said.

Mr Netanyahu has also visited the site of the shooting in the West Bank.

The attacks took place hours after the Israeli military carried out air strikes on targets belonging to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The military said the strikes were a response to a barrage of 34 rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday, which it blamed on the group.

Tensions are running high following two nights of Israeli police raids at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque – Islam’s third holiest site – earlier this week.

The raids triggered violent confrontations with Palestinians inside the mosque and caused anger across the region.

The rockets fired from Lebanon formed the largest such barrage in 17 years.

Hamas did not confirm it had fired the rockets, but leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was visiting Lebanese capital Beirut at the time, said Palestinians would not “sit with their arms crossed” in the face of Israeli aggression.