Two of the five killed in the terror attack in the Tel Aviv suburb were Ukrainians

Two of the five people who died last night in an attack by a Palestinian in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak were of Ukrainian nationality.

The two fatalities, aged 23 and 32, were shot while sitting in front of a grocery store, one of the scenes of yesterday's shooting that also resulted in the deaths of two Israelis and an Arab-Israeli officer, police said Wednesday.

The security forces did not reveal more concrete details of the identity of the Ukrainians.

After the start of the Russian invasion against Ukraine, Israel regularized some 20,000 people with Ukrainian citizenship who were already in the country.

In turn, after the war broke out, thousands of Ukrainian refugees of Jewish origin and entitled to Israeli nationality under the so-called Law of Return entered the country. So did thousands of others without Jewish roots.

In the case of the two victims last night, the authorities did not detail the exact circumstances under which they were in Israel.

Tuesday's attack, by a Palestinian from the West Bank who died after being killed, is the third in a week in Israel.

A total of eleven people have died in the three attacks, the highest number recorded in the Jewish State due to these circumstances since 2006.

Last Sunday, two Arab-Israelis killed two policemen in the northern city of Hadera, and last week, a Bedouin from a village near the southern city of Beersheva killed four civilians in this city. Both attacks were claimed by Islamic State (IS), which has not happened in connection with yesterday's shooting.

After last night's incident, security forces declared a state of high alert, the Israeli Army deployed reinforcements of troops in the West Bank, and Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennet convened the Security Cabinet for today.

The Israeli Government, Security and Intelligence have been criticized for failing to prevent any of the recent attacks.

Naftali Bennett: “Israel faces a wave of Arab terrorism”

Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has denounced that the country is “facing a wave of Arab terrorism” following Tuesday's attack in Bnei Brak.

“The security forces are working. We will fight terrorism with persistence, diligence and an iron fist,” he said. “We will not be moved from here, we will prevail,” he said, while transferring his condolences to the families of the fatalities.

He also stressed in a video that “what was seen during Operation 'Guardian of the Walls' (the military offensive against the Gaza Strip in May 2021) was a harbinger of things that were going to happen”, in reference to the upsurge in violence between Arabs and Jews, as reported by The Times of Israel.

“After a period of silence, there is a violent outburst on the part of those who try to destroy us, those who try to harm us at all costs, those who are driven by hatred towards the Jews and the State of Israel, those who are willing to die so that we cannot live in peace,” he said.

“The secret of our existence is our kindness to others and our determination to defend the house we built at all costs,” stressed Bennett, who held an emergency meeting late Tuesday with Defense Minister Benjamin Gantz and the leadership of the security forces.

For his part, Gantz stressed that the security forces will use “all means” to put an end to these attacks. In this context, the Israeli Army has announced that it will increase military deployment in the West Bank and border areas.

“We have gone through difficult times as a people and as a country, amid waves of terrorism, and we have always won with determination and firmness, something we will do this time too,” Ganz said after the meeting of the security leadership to address this wave of terrorist attacks in Israel.

For his part, Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas condemned the attack on Bnei Brak and argued that the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians “will only lead to a further deterioration of the situation”, especially with the arrival of the Ramadan, Passover and Pesach celebrations.

(With information from EFE and Europa Press)

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