A day on, a subdued Tel Aviv reels from deadly shooting

Tel Aviv, famous for its exuberant street life and 24-hour partying, had a subdued air Saturday as it reeled from a deadly shooting attack at a bar on the busy Dizengoff Street in the heart of the city.

The recently revamped Sarona center was noticeably quiet Saturday morning, with far fewer visitors than on previous weekends, and cafes across Tel Aviv — widely known as the “city that never stops” — were far from bustling.

Locals gathered in the morning to light candles outside the Simta bar, where an Arab Israeli gunman killed two people and wounded seven others on Friday afternoon, traditionally when Tel Avivians pack into bars and cafes to mark the start of the weekend.

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Most of the pubs and eateries on Dizengoff were shuttered following the attack, while those cafes that did open were uncharacteristically underpopulated.

Nashat Milhem, the suspected gunman in Friday’s shooting attack in Tel Aviv (Courtesy)

By Saturday noon, the gunman had still not been caught, and a massive manhunt was still underway in Tel Aviv to track him down.

Police and Shin Bet officials pounded the streets, searching warehouses and construction sites in the belief that he was still in the vicinity.

Police officers stand outside a bar on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, on January 2, 2016, a day after two people were killed in a shooting there. Visible in the image is the adjacent Anise health foods store, where the shooter abandoned his backpack as he launched his attack. (Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Dozens of residents of the city, secular and religious, paid tribute Friday night to the victims of the shooting. They were standing next to the shattered windows of the bar where 26-year-old shift manager Alon Bakal and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, died in a hail of bullets as the gunman calmly walked out of the adjacent health foods store and opened fire with a sub-machine gun.

“It’s unbelievable how this happened, and here,” said one bystander, Ayelet, as she stood in front of the closed bar. Nearby, a group of yarmulke-clad young men recited silent prayers.

The quiet atmosphere extended across the city Friday night, reaching as far as Allenby and Rothschild streets, which would normally be packed with revelers, but where the usual queues outside bars and nightclubs were noticeably absent.

“The attack has had an impact, fewer people came out this evening — you see, there is no line,” said one patron of a half-empty pub in the trendy Florentin neighborhood, just south of Allenby Street.

Nonetheless, some people were defiant.

“We keep on living,” Daniel and Alex, who had come to Tel Aviv from Ashdod, told Maariv. “There are constant attacks in Jerusalem, and Ashdod we had many code reds [air raid sirens] during Protective Edge. We came to start the year in Tel Aviv.”