Blood was shed in the Jaffa district, south of Tel Aviv on Tuesday October 1st. Two shooters opened fire with automatic weapons around 7 p.m. (6 p.m. French time) in a tram station. Seven people died and sixteen others injured, emergency services say.
The facts
At the Sderot-Jerusalem tram station, two terrorists fired into the train before continuing to attack passers-by on foot on Jerusalem Avenue, according to surveillance camera images broadcast by Israeli television. One of the two attackers was shot dead and the other injured, police said.
A witness present at the scene of the attack told the Israeli daily Haaretz : “I saw a terrorist shoot a girl who was on the ground and another girl, then I saw the terrorist shoot a man on a bicycle who fell to the ground, but I don’t think he was hurt.” Another said he heard gunshots while in a store near the scene of the attack and went out into the street to help administer first aid. “There was a young girl injured on the road, several people were already tending to her, then more shots rang out nearby,” he declared. “We dragged the injured woman to the kitchen of a nearby restaurant and blocked the door with a heavy object. I put a tourniquet on him.”.
The victims
Initially estimated at six dead, the death toll from the attack rose to seven victims during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday after a passer-by died from his injuries. “The injured person arrived (at the emergency room) in critical condition […] and after fighting to save her, the doctors had to declare her death“, mentioned Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. The identities of those killed have not been officially released. Only two of them were identified Wednesday morning by Israeli media: Shahar Goldman, aged 30, and Inbar Segev, 33, two Israelis. According to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of their nationals, a Greek resident in Jerusalem, was also among the victims.
The attackers
The two attackers were identified as Muhammad Khalef Saher Rajab and Hassan Muhammad Hassan Tamimi, were both aged in their 20s and from the West Bank city of Hebron. They did not have residency permits in Israel. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, responsible for important policy areas regarding the occupied West Bank, said on X that he would ask the cabinet that the suspects’ family members be deported to Gaza and their homes destroyed. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “If it turns out there is a connection with the mosque [d’où sont sortis les assaillants, ndlr], the message is clear: it must be closed and demolished“. He added: “We must investigate; we do not draw hasty conclusions».
After the attack
Just minutes after the attack, warning sirens sent Israelis rushing to air raid shelters, as Iran fired a barrage of some 200 missiles to avenge Israel’s assassination of some key leaders of its alliance known as the “Axis of Resistance”. When the alarms sounded, many police officers took refuge in nearby buildings, leading to the suspension of searches in the area. Police Commissioner Danny Levy, who had arrived at the scene, also entered a building and continued to command the forces from inside until the alarms stopped.
