Tel Aviv, attack outside
Palestinian nightclub wounds seven people

JERUSALEM – A Palestinian sowed panic in front of a famous Tel Aviv nightclub, launching himself with a stolen taxi against the bouncers and then attacking the guards and some passers-by with a knife. Seven people were injured.

According to the reconstruction provided by the police, at 1.40 a twenty-year-old man from Nablus, West Bank, stole a taxi after attacking the driver, lightly injuring him in one hand. Subsequently, driving the car, he swept a group of guards on duty outside the Club 17, injuring two. Then the young man got out of the car and, armed with a knife, he again attacked the bouncers and some passers-by shouting “Allah Akbar” (“God is the greatest”) and wounding four other people. In the end he was blocked: slightly injured, he was sent to hospital waiting to be questioned by the security services. At the time of the attack in the club, one of the most frequented by young people in Tel Aviv, there were a thousand people.

The identity of the Palestinian has not been disclosed, just as it has not been clarified whether he is a member of some organization and whether he has had accomplices.

The Israeli authorities have meanwhile raised the state of alert in fear of other attacks, especially in the south, in areas close to the border with Egypt, following reports of possible new attacks by Islamic Jihad, after that of a dozen days ago north of Eilat .

Security officials fear a new wave of Palestinian attacks following the strong tension on the border with the Gaza Strip and the controversial plan of Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) who intends to ask the UN General Assembly when it will meet on 20 September, the recognition of a Palestinian state as a non-member state. A move strongly opposed by Israel, as well as by the US and some other Western governments.

(29 August 2011)