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Manhunt Underway After Gunman Opens Fire and Kills Two on Busy Street in Tel Aviv

Israeli police are searching for the attacker who killed two people and wounded five others during a shooting in central Tel Aviv.
Photo by Nir Elias/Reuters

A gunman identified by relatives as a member of Israel's Arab minority killed two people on a bustling thoroughfare in central Tel Aviv on Friday before fleeing, an incident that ramped up tensions after three months of Palestinian street violence.

Footage from surveillance cameras in nearby businesses showed the gunman moments before the attack and when he opened fire. In one video, a young man is seen calmly buying vegetables in a shop before pulling a weapon from his backpack and walking out into the street.

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A second video showed customers in an adjacent business ducking for cover as the man sprayed bullets in the street outside.

At least three people were also wounded in the attack. With the suspect still at large, police declined to offer a motive.

"All possible angles are being investigated," spokeswoman Luba Samri said without elaborating. "Large-scale police forces are conducting searches for him."

Nati Shakked, owner of the next-door Simta bar where several people were hit while they celebrated a birthday, told Israel's Channel 2 TV, "It was a terrorist attack, without a doubt."

The aftermath of the deadly shooting in a Tel Aviv pub. (Photo by Nuno Paixão/Instagram)

Sami Melhem, an Israeli Arab lawyer, said the shooter was a relative of his, whose father, a police volunteer, had come forward to identify him to authorities after the security footage aired. The 28-year-old suspect's name was withheld from publication under a court gag order.

Speaking to Channel 2, Melhem said he had previously represented the suspect in a case where he was jailed for assaulting an Israeli soldier. But Melhem described him as mentally unstable rather than politically militant.

"This man is not sane, to the best of my knowledge since I represented him," Melhem said. "He has received treatment. He is receiving treatment. Recently he has been going around in the street as an insane person."

Asked if the suspect had radical religious tendencies, Melhem said, "I do not know."

Police and civilians searching all over Tel Aviv for the terrorist responsible for shooting attack earlier killing 2 — Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig)January 1, 2016

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Arabs, the majority of them Muslim, make up 20 percent of Israel's population. While they broadly sympathize with the Palestinians, they rarely take up arms against the country or its majority Jews.

Israel has seen a wave of Palestinian street attacks since October, fuelled in part by Muslim anger over stepped-up Jewish visits to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque complex, also sacred to Jews.

There was no immediate claim by Palestinian armed factions for Friday's attack.

Israel has also been bracing for a possible attack by the Islamic State, which has a small but growing following among Israeli Arabs. An Islamic State audio message circulated on social media last week threatened to strike at Israel "soon."

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