American tourist among dead after shooting attack in Israel

The US Department of State said it had extended its condolences to his family and friends.

Later, at least one assailant opened fire from a auto near a Jewish settlement south of Jerusalem before crashing into pedestrians.

Five people died on Thursday as two separate Palestinians attacks targeting Israelis – a stabbing in Tel Aviv and a West Bank gun and car-ramming assault – shattered a lull in weeks-long violence.

In the West Bank attack on Wednesday, near the Alon Shvut settlement in the Gush Etzion bloc, the yeshiva student killed was Ezra Schwartz, 18, of Sharon, Massachusetts.

In the first attack by the Palestinians, a 36-year-old man entered the Panorama office building at Tel Aviv with a knife.

Two different suspects are believed to have stabbed the Israelis, one of whom was a Palestinian from Dura who was captured by Israeli civilians, the police spokesperson said.

Schwartz was spending a gap year in Israel and studied in a Jewish seminary.

The attacks are part of a wave of violence that began in September over tensions surrounding a Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims.

It was not clear what he was doing in Tel Aviv, although many Palestinians have permits to work in Israel.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin connected the attacks in Israel to the terror attacks in Paris on Friday, in which 129 people were killed and hundreds injured, and the Russian plane crash in late October that killed more than 200 people, which Russian authorities confirmed as a terror attack.

It should be noted he also included the name and info of Shadi Arafa, a Palestinian and not an Israeli citizen, who was fatally shot in the driveby shooting reportedly perpetrated by Palestinian assailants. Numerous Palestinians killed have been alleged attackers, while others have been shot in clashes with Israeli security forces. Whoever condemned the attacks in France needs to condemn the attacks in Israel.

Israeli soldiers fired intensive tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to disperse Palestinian protesters who threw stones at them, witnesses added.

According to the Times of Israel, Shwartz and a Palestinian man were declared dead at the scene in the incident that killed three total and injured four others.

Israeli security officials quietly admit they are preparing for months of attacks while analysts said new checks will be needed to prevent further bloodshed.

“We welcome the heroic operation in Tel Aviv that killed two people”, the Islamic terrorist group, Hamas, said in a tweet. The other three died in the West Bank.