Israel launches manhunt after attack kills 3 on nation’s independence day
- At least three killed in what police suspect was a Palestinian attack in the central Israeli city of Elad on the country’s independence day
- The violence comes amid a recent spate of Arab street attacks in Israel, as well as clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City
Israeli security forces launched a manhunt Friday for two Palestinians suspected of killing three Israelis in an attack that came as the Jewish state marked its founding.
The attack on Thursday night in Elad, a central city mainly populated by ultra-Orthodox Jews, was the sixth in which Israelis have been targeted since March 22.
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that two assailants leapt from a car swinging axes at passers-by, leaving three of them dead and four wounded, before fleeing in the same vehicle.
The independence day attack came hours after clashes between Israelis and Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a highly contested site in Jerusalem’s Israeli-annexed Old City that has been the focal point during weeks of violence.
It followed a tense period in which the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter overlapped.