Israel: Four wounded as Palestinian gunman opens fire on market

Four people have been wounded, Israeli police have said, after a shooter, believed to be a Palestinian, opened fire on a market in the town of Petah Tikvah, 10km outside of Tel Aviv.

A spokesman for the Israeli police said in a statement that the attacker opened fire on Thursday 9 February in the open air market and was arrested shortly afterwards. The attack has been characterised a likely terror incident, the AP reported.

The Israeli security services regularly refer to violence perpetrated by Palestinians as terror attacks.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the four injured were only lightly wounded. A spokesman for the Magen David Adom hospital was quoted as saying the victims were a man and woman in their 50s and a woman in her 30s. Another man, 40 years old, was admitted with a stab wound.

There has been an upsurge in violence in the protracted Israel-Palestine conflict since 2015. Palestinian attackers have stabbed, shot and rundown Israeli victims with cars. Forty one Israelis and two Americans have died as a result.

The Israeli Defence Forces have killed 235 Palestinians in the same period in incidents connected to the violence – Israel claims the majority of Palestinians killed were attackers, while others died after provoking Israeli forces.