Israeli police have launched a major manhunt for a gunman who opened fire at a bar in the busiest part of Tel Aviv on New Year’s Day, killing two people and wounding at least three others.

Police say the gunman entered the bar on the corner of Dizengoff Street and Gordon Street, an area of cafes, shops and many pedestrians, before firing an automatic weapon at a group celebrating a birthday and then fleeing the scene.

Israeli authorities have cordoned off city centre streets to traffic and pedestrians, and are escorting residents to their homes and conducting door-to-door searches . The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is to hold an emergency meeting later on Friday night.

The motive for the shooting is unclear, but it comes at a time of heightened tensions and a spate of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis since early October.

Israel has also been bracing for a possible attack by Islamic State, which has a small but growing following among Israeli Arabs. An Isis audio message circulated on social media last week threatened to strike at Israel “soon”.

“All possible angles are being investigated,” Luba Samri, a police spokeswoman, told Reuters. “Large-scale police forces are conducting searches for him.”

Surveillance footage of the shooting released by Israel’s Channel 10 and circulated online shows a group of men and women sitting outside the bar as the gunman opens fire.



More footage from before the attack shows the suspect, wearing glasses and dressed in black, picking up items in a health food shop before putting them back and pulling a weapon from a backpack. He appears to be aged under 30.

When emergency services arrived on the scene, bar stools were scattered across the pavement and wounded patrons were lying on the ground. The injured were taken to the city’s Ichilov hospital and Beilinson Wolfson medical centre.

The victims were named as Alon Bakal, 26, the bar’s manager, and Shimon Ruimi, 30, from Ofakim.

An eyewitness across the street from the attack, who was being treated for shock, described the scene to the media. He said the people inside the bar had been mainly young and had been drinking beer to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Another witness, Noah, told the Jerusalem Post he had come face-to-face with the gunman while he had been waiting for a sandwich in a coffee shop. “He had a black jacket, black hair, a goatee, and he was holding his rifle with two hands,” he said.

“We dropped to the floor and I remember the smile on his face. He shot once again toward the cafe. Suddenly he fled and people began running after him.”



The mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, visited the scene soon after the shooting and said he believed it was a “terrorist attack motivated by nationalism”.

“Terrorism attempts to frighten us and disrupt our lives. I urge everyone to take a deep breath, relax and we will take care of this,” he said.

It was the first attack in Tel Aviv since a stabbing on 2 November in which two people were killed.

In the past three months, a combination of almost daily attacks by Palestinians and clashes with Israeli soldiers have killed more than 115 on the Palestinian side, 21 Israelis, a US citizen and an Eritrean. Thousands more have been injured.