JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas and another Palestinian militant group claimed responsibility on Monday for what appeared to be a failed bombing attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv that killed the attacker and wounded a bystander.
The blast late on Sunday came as mediators were working on a cease-fire agreement in the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The bomb appeared to have gone off before it was intended, and it was unclear whether the attacker planned to carry out a suicide attack or plant the explosives and set them off remotely.
Tel Aviv’s district police commander, Deputy Commissioner Peretz Amar, told reporters the blast occurred a few meters (yards) from a synagogue filled with people at evening prayers.
The fact that the bomb appears to have gone off prematurely, outside on the street, helped avoid “a very real tragedy” that could have had many fatalities and inflicted major damage, he said.
Amar said the suspect, who was captured in security footage walking down the street wearing a large backpack, was not previously known to police and they are working to identify where he came from and if he received any additional support.
Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a joint statement the blast was an attack that involved “a powerful explosive.”
In a statement Monday, Hamas said it and the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad group were responsible for the blast and threatened to continue attacking “as long as the occupation’s massacres, displacement of civilians, and the continuation of the assassination policy continues.”
The statement appeared to refer to recent strikes attributed to Israel that have killed senior militants, as well as the war in Gaza, which was ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel.
Palestinian militants carried out scores of suicide bombings in Israel in the 1990s and 2000s, killing hundreds of people in buses, restaurants and other public places, and drawing Israeli retaliatory raids. But Hamas and other groups have mostly abandoned the tactic since then, instead resorting to shootings, stabbings, car ramming attacks and firing rockets from Gaza.
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