Woman killed, 3 others wounded in stabbing attack in Israel

Palestinians carry the body of a victim of an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. The strike killed several people including a woman and injured others, health officials confirmed. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

TEL AVIV, Israel — A woman in her 70s was killed and three other people were wounded in a stabbing attack by at least one Palestinian in a suburb of Tel Aviv on Sunday, police and medics said, as tensions remained high across the region following the killing of two senior militants in separate strikes.

The police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant, who was “neutralized,” and that a search was underway for other suspects in Holon, where the stabbings occurred.

Tensions have soared across the region since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza last year. Israel is bracing for retaliation after the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike in Lebanon and Hamas’ top political leader in an attack in Iran’s capital last week.

The police initially said four people were wounded. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service later confirmed that the woman had died. It said a 70-year-old man was in critical condition, a 68-year-old man was in severe condition and a 26-year-old man was in moderate condition.

The rescuers said the wounded were found in three different locations, each about 500 meters (yards) apart.

In Gaza, an Israeli strike earlier on Sunday hit a tent camp housing displaced people in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, killing four people, including a woman, and injuring others, health officials said. They did not say whether those killed were civilians or fighters.

An Associated Press journalist filmed men rushing to the scene to help the wounded and retrieve bodies, while trying to extinguish the fire.

The hospital in Deir al-Balah is the main medical facility operating in central Gaza, and thousands of people have taken shelter there after fleeing their homes in the war-ravaged territory.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 people hostage in their surprise attack into southern Israel last October, triggering the ongoing war.

Israel’s massive offensive launched in Gaza has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Hezbollah has regularly traded fire with Israel along the Lebanon border since the start of the war, in what the militant group says is aimed at relieving pressure on its fellow Iran-backed ally, Hamas. The continuous strikes and counterstrikes have grown in severity in recent months, raising fears of an even more destructive regional war.

Over 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.