Police hunt for gunman after deadly Tel Aviv pub attack

The New Year's Day shooting came days after leader of Islamic State group threatened the Jewish state with violence

TEL AVIV: Israeli security forces pressed a manhunt Saturday for the gunman who killed two people and wounded seven others at a Tel Aviv pub, with the motive for the attack still a mystery.

The New Year's Day shooting on busy Dizengoff Street came amid a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis and days after the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group threatened the Jewish state with violence.

Police partially lifted a gag order on Saturday evening, naming the suspected shooter as Nashaat Melhem, 31, from the Arab village of Arara in northern Israel.



"Police are continuing to search for suspect who murdered two Israelis in central Tel Aviv," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding that road blocks had been set up in different parts of the city.

In the hours after the attack, hundreds of police scoured the area as police helicopters buzzed overhead.

Earlier Saturday, Arara's council condemned the shooting in a statement, saying residents "fiercely object to any act of violence".

"This is the act of one individual who does not represent any of the town's residents," the statement said, stressing that the attack was "foreign to our culture".

Rosenfeld said there was a "strong possibility that this was a terrorist attack but we haven't ruled out criminal motives".

He did not elaborate.



Members of his family told media Melhem had been suffering mental issues, and had been imprisoned for attacking an Israeli soldier in what he said was an attempt at revenge over the death of a relative shot by police in 2006.

Security camera footage from a nearby store showed a bespectacled young man with a backpack calmly pretending to shop before going to the exit, placing the backpack on a trolley, removing what looked like a submachine gun and opening fire in the street.

One of those killed was identified by his father as Alon Bakal, a law and business student who was a manager at Simta, the pub that was targeted.

Police named the second fatality as Shimon Ruimi from southern Israel.

They issued a gag order on the investigation, as well as the one into the death of an Arab Israeli taxi driver found shot in north Tel Aviv a short while after the shooting rampage.

They have refused to say whether the attacks were linked.

In a recording released a week ago and attributed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the secretive IS leader pledged to attack Israel.

Baghdadi said IS has "not forgotten Palestine for a single moment".

"And soon, soon with God's permission, you will hear the footsteps of the mujahedeen... We are getting closer to you day by day," he said.

Meanwhile, in a wave of Palestinian attacks since October 1 -- including stabbings, car-rammings and gunfire targeting security forces and civilians -- 20 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean have been killed.

At the same time, according to an AFP count, 138 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks on Israelis.