A Palestinian man with Israeli citizenship went on a shooting rampage in several towns in central Israel on Sunday, killing one person and wounding five others, according to Israeli police.
The number of places where people were shot initially raised concerns that there could be multiple, co-ordinated attackers who had crossed over from the West Bank – evoking memories of the Hamas-led attacks in October 2023 – before police eventually determined that it was a lone gunman and an accomplice.
The attacker was killed by police.
Rescue services Magen David Adom said it received the first reports of a shooting at a fuel station near the town of Kokhav Yair, located on the Israeli side of the boundary with the West Bank, at around 10.30am.
Several other shooting reports were received soon afterwards, in the towns of Tsur Natan, Tsur Yitzhak, and close to the Israeli settlement of Sal’it, located inside the West Bank.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported the attacker stayed in his car while shooting, allowing him to reach several locations within a matter of minutes.
Police arrested a second person involved in the attack later on Sunday. The man attempted to stab police with a glass bottle during the arrest, but there were no injuries, police said. Additional investigations are ongoing.
A 35-year-old Israeli man was killed in the town of Kokhav Yair, according to Magen David Adom.
It said five people were injured in the shootings, and two of them are in a serious condition.
Oshrit Gani Gonen, the regional council head for the area that includes the towns where the shootings took place, said: “Since October 7, the scenario we were expecting was terrorist crossing into our towns from over the boundary, I don’t think that anyone imagined that we would discover the attackers were Israeli citizens.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the quick action of the security forces.
Israel’s public security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, published a video on X standing next to what appeared to be a blurred out image of the attacker’s body and proclaimed: “This is the end of every terrorist, this is how it should look.
“This is the result for terrorists, who need to be eliminated – preferably in the field, if not under the framework of the death penalty law for terrorists we passed.”
