“We condemn today’s terrorist attack in Israel,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Such irrational acts of violence and murder have no place in society. We stand by our Israeli partners and send our condolences to the families of the victims.”
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which cited a post by the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency. Amaq posted a screenshot of a video posted on social media showing two masked men swearing allegiance to the ISIS leader before the attack.
Amaq described the attack as a “twin commando attack by Islamic State fighters”, according to SITE.
The two perpetrators, who were shot and killed by Israeli police, came from the Arab Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm in the northern district of Haifa. An Israeli police spokesman said the gunmen opened fire on local police in Khandera, killing two bystanders. Police said the victims were members of the border police.
“Recently, two terrorists arrived on Herbert Samuel Street in Chandera and started firing at a local police force. As a result of the shooting, two passers-by were killed,” the spokesman said.
“A secret force on the scene sought contact and after a brief battle neutralized the terrorists,” the spokesman added.
The Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Chandera said six people were injured in the attack, two of whom are in critical condition.
On Tuesday, an Arab-Israeli gunman killed four people in a knife attack in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba before being fatally shot by a passer-by, according to Israeli police. The perpetrator had previously been arrested for supporting ISIS, according to the Israeli judiciary.
