Tel Aviv shooting: Manhunt underway

Israeli police are searching for a gunman who killed two people in an attack in Tel Aviv. Officers from several Israeli agencies set up roadblocks in Tel Aviv, checked homes and searched empty buildings around the city, Rosenfeld said.

The incident took place in Dizengoff Street in the city centre.

Police say they are investigating possible motives for the attack, which came amid more than three months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Police said the suspected shooter remains at large and warned residents to clear the blocks near Dizengoff and Gordon streets as they combed the area.

The Jan. 1 shooting left two people dead and at least eight injured, and has prompted a massive manhunt for the alleged killer as investigators look into the possibility that the shooting was inspired by the Islamic State, the Jerusalem Post reported. After injuring 10 people, two of whom died, the bespectacled young man in black fled.

Israeli medics tend to a wounded person at the scene of a shooting attack that killed two people in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Friday.. A Quran, the Muslim holy book, was found later in the attacker’s bag, he said.

Security camera footage showed the suspect taking a weapon out of his backpack and shooting.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai rushed to the scene of the pub shooting.

“All of our emphasis at this moment in time is finding that suspect and all the different organizations – security organizations here in Israel – are working together to find that man”, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told CNN on Saturday.

Media reports identified the shooter as an Arab in his late twenties from northern Israel who had recently been jailed for trying to snatch a soldier’s weapon, but police refused to confirm.

The three dailies reported that Israeli authorities released the bodies of 23 Palestinians who were killed for being suspected in carrying out attacks against Israelis, including the bodies of 17 Palestinians from Hebron. At least 131 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, 90 of them identified by Israel as assailants. The Palestinians say it is rooted in frustrations stemming from almost five decades of Israeli occupation.