Thursday night’s terror attack has drawn several comparisons to a similar attack at a bar just down the street in 2016, in which Arab Israeli man Nashat Milhelm opened fire on the Simta pub, and then escaped back to his home in Wadi Ara within hours. Two people were killed at the pub, and Milhelm also killed a taxi driver as he fled.
He was eventually found in his hometown of Arara after a week-long manhunt. In contrast, shooter Ra’ad Hazem was found just 10 hours after the shooting, hiding out in nearby Jaffa.
Channel 12 news reports that Hazem also planned on escaping home, in his case to the West Bank, but was stymied by a decision to set up checkpoints on roads leading out of Tel Aviv toward the West Bank or northern Israel. Instead, he was shot and killed in a shootout with forces outside a Jaffa mosque.
According to Kan, Hazem did not visit the mosque before the shooting, but went straight to Tel Aviv, where he walked around before eventually carrying out the attack.
Earlier reports had indicated he had been there before the attack.
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From the Liveblog of
Friday, April 8, 2022
