Hamas claims Tel Aviv bomb explosion as suicide attack
Hamas has claimed it was behind a bomb explosion in Tel Aviv on Sunday night which Israeli authorities say killed the suspected attacker and injured a civilian.
A statement from the armed group said it had been a “martyrdom operation" carried out in co-operation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
It also warned that suicide attacks would “return to the forefront” if Israel continued what it called “massacres” of Palestinians.
Israel’s police force and Shin Bet domestic security service said earlier that they could confirm it was a terrorist attack involving a powerful explosive device.
The blast happened on Lehi Street in southern Tel Aviv, about an hour after the US secretary of state landed in the city to push for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
CCTV footage filmed moments before appeared to show a middle aged man walking past a shop carrying a full backpack.
Israel’s Magen David Adom service said paramedics found an unconscious man in his 50s with multiple systemic injuries who they pronounced dead at the scene.
A 33-year-old bystander who suffered shrapnel injuries to his limbs and chest was treated by the paramedics before being taken to a local hospital.
"It was a miracle that it did not explode in the nearest synagogue or in the shopping centre. It could have ended in dozens of deaths," Ayalon District Police Commander Haim Bublil said on Monday, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
The identity of the perpetrator is not yet known, but police suspect he was a Palestinian.
In a separate development on Sunday, an Israeli security guard was killed by a Palestinian man at an industrial area near the settlement of Kedumim, in the north of the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities said.
Gideon Perry, a 38-year-old father of three, was fatally wounded when he was hit with a hammer by a labourer, who then stole his firearm and drove away.
The local Israeli military commander, Maj-Gen Avi Bluth, said it was a “very serious terrorist attack” and that troops were in pursuit of the attacker.
So far, no Palestinian armed groups have claimed they were behind the attack, which came three days after a deadly rampage by Israeli settlers at a Palestinian village near Kedumim.
The Palestinian health ministry said a Palestinian man was shot dead as settlers set fire to a number of vehicles and homes in Jit, in an incident which brought swift and unusual condemnation from Israeli leaders.
There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.
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