One woman was killed Sunday and three other people wounded in a stabbing attack near Tel Aviv, Israel’s emergency medical service said, with police reporting a Palestinian suspect was “neutralised”.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said in a statement that the “terrorist attack” took place in several locations in Holon, a southern suburb of Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
It comes at a moment of heightened tension in Israel and the wider Middle East, nearly 10 months into the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The stabbing suspect, from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was “neutralised” by a police officer who arrived at the scene, the force said in a statement without elaborating.
A 70-year-old woman who was badly wounded died from her injuries shortly after the attack, Magen David Adom said.
Three other men were wounded, it added.
A 70-year-old was in a critical condition, a 68-year-old was seriously wounded, and a 26-year-old moderately, the organisation said.
“This was a complex and difficult terrorist attack, with the victims located in three different places, around 500 metres (yards) from each other,” Magen David Adom said.
Regional tensions have soared as Iran and Middle East armed groups it backs threatened retaliation for the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, which they blame on Israel, and an Israeli strike in Beirut hours earlier that killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.