New Year's Day Shooting In Tel Aviv Kills At Least 2

[news]

[news]

TEL AVIV -- A gunman opened fire on a bar in central Tel Aviv on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding seven others. 

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the shooter fled the scene. Authorities apprehended a suspect on a nearby street.

The motive of the attack, which took place just off Dizengoff Street, a café-filled main street, was not yet clear. 

Nati Shakked, owner of the Simta bar, which was hit by gunfire on Dizengoff Street, told Reuters that the assailant had waited on a bench outside before taking a machine gun out of a bag and "shooting in every direction."

A video captured the graphic moment the attacker opened fire. 






Lily, an owner of a nearby beauty salon who was in the bar at the time, told HuffPost she initially thought the sounds of the gunshots were New Year's noisemakers. When she realized it was a shooting, she dropped to the ground and hid under the bar.






Another woman who was in the bar told reporters of Israel's Channel 2 that she and seven others hid in a storage closet in the basement of a bar during the attack, "lying down" on the door to keep it from being penetrated.

"Our whole body was shaking," she said. "There were very big booms, tremblings -- it all happened above us. Mostly it was gunshots."

Police lines deeper near café where shooting occured. #Dizingoff pic.twitter.com/3NVqpdEjEk
— Meg Robertson (@MegRobertson) January 1, 2016

While the identity and motive of the shooter remain unknown, the attack comes amid a period of heightened violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians have killed 19 Israelis and an American since the start of October, mostly in spontaneous stabbings or car-ramming attacks. Israeli security forces have killed 142 Palestinians over the same period, according to the Palestinian health ministry -- a figure that includes suspected Palestinian assailants shot dead and Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

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