An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35 years old from Rome, was killed in a car bombing on the seafront Tel-Aviv. Two other Italians were wounded.
The group of Italians involved in the attack will return to Italy today. According to what has been learned, the compatriots will be accompanied in the early afternoon by the staff of the Italian embassy to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv from where they will take a direct flight to Rome.
The Farnesina expressed “horror and dismay at the cowardly attack”. Giorgia Meloni “expresses deep condolences for the death of one of our compatriots, Alessandro Parini, in the terrorist attack that took place in Tel Aviv”, reports a note from Palazzo Chigi. “President Melons – reads the press release – expresses closeness to the victim’s family, to the injured, and solidarity with the State of Israel for the cowardly attack that hit him”. Meloni and the government are in contact with the Israeli authorities to follow the updates and the possible involvement in the attack of other Italian citizens.
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, expressed his execration for the cowardly act of terrorism which, in Tel Aviv, together with the wounding of other tourists, caused the death of the young Italian lawyer Alessandro Parini, addressing his family and friends the condolences and closeness of the Republic and its personal. He also expressed the condolences of the Italian Republic to the President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog.
The body of Alessandro Parini “should return to Italy in the next few days”, ha the deputy prime minister and foreign minister told SkyTg24 Antonio Tajani underlining the “proximity of the government” to the family and recalling having “talked at length with the father. “One of the Italians (wounded in the Tel Aviv attack, ed) could be discharged within a few hours – Tajani said again – . I think the other needs a few more days”. The minister assured that “our officials at the embassy in Israel are personally following” the events “in close contact with the Israeli authorities”. The victim, Alessandro Parini, and the two wounded “were not part of the same group,” added Tajani.
The identity of the Italian victim and the wounding of the other two were confirmed in the evening by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who spoke to Parini’s father to express closeness and condolences.
Parini, Tajani reported again, “had just arrived in Tel Aviv for tourism with a group of friends”. When “a car at breakneck speed” pounced on passers-by on the seafront. Once out of the car, which overturned, the attacker – according to the police – also attempted to shoot into the crowd and was then killed by the reaction of the security guards.
Israeli police have confirmed that the perpetrator of last night’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv is an Israeli Arab from Kfar Kassem northeast of Tel Aviv. The Israeli media – after an initial version – had subsequently reported the possible theft of the car by unknown persons and therefore he could not have been the author of the attack. Hypothesis later denied. The police then announced that the bomber was neutralized by two agents who arrived at the site of the attack.
The episode immediately rekindled the already high tension in recent days and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu called other reservists after those in the air force. The area where the attack took place is very popular with tourists, who flocked in large numbers during the Easter holidays. Hamas and Islamic Jihad did not fail to express their satisfaction with the attack described as “a high-level operation”.
After striking in Gaza and Lebanon, the recall of reservists and the strengthening of troops in the territories is a clear message to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The tension, already skyrocketing, was aggravated by the other Palestinian attack in the West Bank, with the killing of two young sisters (21 and 16 years old) and the serious wounding of their mother (48 years old). Even in Jerusalem, on the Esplanade of the Mosques, the situation seems to hang by a thread, even if for the moment there are no serious incidents, with the police continuing to patrol the place in force. After the rain of rockets fired from Gaza (one of the 44 fell on a house without causing casualties) and from Palestinian factions linked to Hamas from the south of the Land of the Cedars, Israel responded overnight by hitting three sites in Lebanon and over ten in Strip, including two tunnels and various Armed Faction emplacements. Instead, the Lebanese army announced that it had dismantled a launch pad in an agricultural field in the south. Israel’s response seems to stop there for the moment and – according to analysts – appears limited, taking into account the strong international pressure to put out the fire, starting from Moscow, and the Arab world‘s opposition to Israel. The Palestinian bombing was carried out on Road 57 in the northern Jordan Valley in the West Bank, near the Hamra interchange. The two victims (according to some reports, also of British nationality) were traveling together with their mother – all from the Jewish settlement of Efrat, near Bethlehem – in the same car which was riddled with gunfire from another vehicle, ending up off road. The Palestinian bomber fled and is now wanted by the security forces. “Our forces are now engaged in the hunt for terrorists. It’s just a matter of time, not long, and we’ll settle the bill,” Netanyahu said while visiting the site of the attack for the first time publicly with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whose dismissal has been frozen.
West Bank, Israeli tanks fire tear gas at Palestinians