TEL AVIV: Israel’s premier on Friday gave security agencies “full freedom” of operation to curb surging violence, after the latest deadly attack saw a Palestinian gunman kill two men in a popular nightlife area.

“There are not and will not be limits for this war,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, speaking hours after the attack in Tel Aviv.

“We are granting full freedom of action to the army, the Shin Bet (the domestic security agency) and all security forces in order to defeat the terror,” he added, in a public address in the Israeli coastal city.

The Palestinian movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Islamic Jihad group praised the attack but have stopped short of claiming responsibility.

Mahmud Abbas says killing of civilians will aggravate situation

Earlier on Friday, Israeli police said they had shot dead a Palestinian gunman who killed two Israeli men and wounded over a dozen others when he opened fire on a street of busy bars and restaurants crowded on a Thursday evening.

Some 1,000 heavily armed police and army troops fanned out across Tel Aviv hunting for the perpetrator for hours, as locals hid in restaurant kitchens and in their homes.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, speaking alongside Bennett, said officers had made “around 200 arrests”, adding that “if necessary there will be thousands”.

The two Israeli men killed were named as Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini, both 27 and childhood friends from the city of Kfar Saba, the mayor Rafi Saar said, who called them “our best sons”. Magini was due to celebrate his engagement on Friday evening, Lia Arad, the mother of his fiancée, told Israeli public TV.

“They were supposed to celebrate their engagement party tonight, Eytam’s cousins organised it in this house where we are now sitting in mourning,” Arad said.

Morad was an avid fan of the Hapoel Tel Aviv Basketball Club, which said in a note of condolence it sent “a warm and loving hug”. The two friends are to be buried on Sunday.

Special forces confronted the attacker in the old city of Jaffa, the historic Arab district of Tel Aviv, “eliminating the terrorist by exchange of fire”, police commissioner Yaakov Shabtai said. Israel’s Shin Bet agency named the assailant as Raad Hazem, 28, from Jenin in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where last week Israeli forces killed three in a raid.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas condemned the attack, saying “the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians only leads to a further deterioration of the situation”, the official Wafa news agency reported.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also criticised the “terrorist attack” and said Washington stood by Israel “in the face of senseless terrorism and violence”. A total of 13 people have been killed in attacks in Israel since March 22.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022