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The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad gave claimed responsibility for a bomb blast near a synagogue in Tel Aviv, which the Israeli police and the Shin Bet intelligence agency described as a terrorist attack on Sunday.
A man who was carrying the bomb was killed and a passerby was injured in the incident late on Sunday, according to police at the scene in Israel’s commercial capital.
Israeli government spokesperson, David Mencer, said the man was carrying a backpack loaded with explosives that detonated “before he managed to reach a more heavily populated area.”
In a joint statement, the two Palestinian militant groups said their “martyrdom operations” inside Israel would return to the forefront as long as the “occupation’s massacres and assassination policy continue.” This was an allusion to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and the July 31 killing of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death in the Iranian capital. The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 last year, when Hamas gunmen stormed across the border into Israeli communities, killing about 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign has since levelled wide swathes of the Gaza Strip and killed at least 40,000 people, according to the enclave’s health authorities.
Sunday’s explosion in Tel Aviv came about an hour after the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, arrived in Tel Aviv to push for a ceasefire in Gaza to end the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.
There has been increased urgency to reach a ceasefire deal amid fears of an escalation across the wider region. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Haniyeh.
Meanwhile, Blinken warned yesterday that the latest push for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal was probably the best and possibly the last opportunity, urging Israel and Hamas towards an elusive agreement.
However, with Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, announcing a resumption of suicide bombing inside Israel after many years, and with Israeli airstrikes still pounding Gaza, there was little sign of conciliation.
The talks in Qatar last week paused without a breakthrough, but the negotiations are to resume this week based on a U.S. “bridging proposal.” Blinken met Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday morning.
“This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” Blinken told reporters before meeting Herzog.
Months of on-off talks have circled the same issues, with Israel saying the war can only end with the destruction of Hamas as a military and political force and Hamas saying it will only accept a permanent, and not a temporary, ceasefire.
