Israel suspends Palestinian entry permits following gun attack

During the evening of 8 June gunmen targeted an open-air shopping and dining complex in Sarona precinct (Tel Aviv), killing four people and injuring a further 16. Officials have said that two Palestinians from the West Bank were responsible and are now in custody. Following the attack, the authorities have suspended entry permits for 83,000 Palestinians. The ban will affect those Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who had planned to visit Israel, attend Ramadan prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem or travel overseas via the airport in Tel Aviv. It does not affect those with work permits. The past year has witnessed a spate of attacks against Israelis, but these had dropped off markedly in recent weeks. Responding to news of the incident, Hamas described it as “heroic attack” while the Palestinian Authority failed to comment.

Ilana Nave was celebrating her 40th birthday in Tel Aviv’s Sarona market when she was shot and killed, with three other Israelis, by two Palestinian cousins from Yatta, in the southern Hebron hills.

Video footage and witness accounts described the bloody scene on Wednesday evening, with families and friends dining at restaurants, as the dead were named.

Those who died came from Tel Aviv and its surrounding towns and from the Negev. Nave, a mother of four from Tel Aviv, Ido Ben Ari from Ramat Gan, Michael Feige, 58, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Mila Mishayev, 32, from Ashkelon.

Mishayev, the youngest of the victims, was waiting in the restaurant for her fiance when the attack took place.



In one video, the attackers – named by Palestinian media as Muhammad and Khalid Muhamra – can be seeing sitting in dark suits and white shirts at a table in the popular Max Brenner restaurant, where they had reportedly ordered drinks and chocolate brownies, before standing up suddenly and firing at close range at fellow diners.



Ben Ari, 41, a father of two, was in the neighbouring Benedict restaurant when he was shot and his wife reportedly also wounded. He was a manager at Coca-Cola in Israel.

One of the wounded, Asaf Bar, was dining with his girlfriend in Max Brenner when he was shot in the head twice. “He spoke to us, he can move all his limbs,” Bar’s father Avner told Israeli media. “One bullet remains in his head and the other was removed.”

Israel’s Channel 10 aired CCTV footage from inside the restaurant showing two men in suits shooting at diners as they run away from their tables. One of the attackers shoots a man on the ground and waves a knife before running out.

Other footage showed scenes of panic as people fled from where they were eating; one witness described some diners seeking safety in a restaurant refrigerator.

The attack, it appears, lasted a minute before one of the assailants was shot by a security guard while the other was arrested by police.

The attack was welcomed by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza.

The restaurant’s manager told the Ynet news website what he recalled: “I was sitting in the restaurant and they were acting like any regular customer.

“They had bags and they ordered something to eat. Suddenly they pulled guns out and starting firing. They didn’t shout anything. The two of them simply took the guns out and opened fire.”

Yosef Jibrin, a barman at Max Brenner, commented to Ynet on initial reports that the men may have disguised themselves as observant Jews. “They didn’t look like ultra-Orthodox people. When the shooting began people tried to flee into our kitchen. I also fled and then I returned to the restaurant to see if there were any more people. I saw wounded people on the floor and helped one of them until a paramedic arrived.”

Israeli policemen arrest a suspect man shortly after the shooting attack. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The shooting – in the first week of Ramadan – occurred when Israelis were getting used to a recent and marked drop in the recent months of violence and in one of the softest of targets – in a restaurant in an area of restored buildings popular with both residents and tourists and soldiers from the nearby military headquarters.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, met his defence minister and security leaders shortly after the attack and then travelled to the scene.



“We discussed a range of offensive and defensive steps which we shall take in order to act against this phenomenon,” Netanyahu’s office quoted the premier as saying. “There will be intensive action by the police, the army and other security services, not just to catch every accomplice to this murder but also to prevent further incidents.”

However in the aftermath of the shooting Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai struck a markedly different tone on Thursday - and stoked controversy - by linking the continuing violence to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Speaking to Army Radio he said: “We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights (....) You can’t hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they’ll reach the conclusion everything is alright.”

For his part Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that he rejected all attacks on civilians. “The presidency has repeatedly rejected all operations against civilians from any party, no matter what the justification.”

“The realization of a just peace, and creating a positive climate, that is what will lead to the lowering of tension and violence in the region,” the statement continues.

Israel on Thursday suspended most of 83,000 special permits for Palestinians to visit Israel during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and beefed up police patrols in Tel Aviv. Israel considers the Ramadan permits a goodwill gesture toward Palestinians.

The Ramadan permits were also suspended for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including permits to visit relatives in Israel, travel abroad and attend prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The shooting drew international condemnation, with the US calling it a “horrific terrorist attack” and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton condeming it as “heinous”.

The UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, said: “All must reject violence and say no to terror.”

He added in a statement: “I am also shocked to see Hamas welcome the terror attack. Leaders must stand against violence and the incitement that fuels it, not condone it.”

Police identified at least one of the weapons used as a home-made automatic weapon, known locally as a Carl Gustav, or “Carlo”, the use of which has become increasingly prominent in recent attacks.

Many attacks in the wave of violence that began last autumn have been in east Jerusalem or the West Bank, territories Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their future state. But Tel Aviv, Israel’s most cosmopolitan city, has not been spared. A member of Israel’s Arab minority went on a shooting rampage on New Year’s Day, killing three people. And in March a Palestinian killed an American and wounded seven people before he was shot dead.