Two suspected Arab gunmen killed two people in Israel on Sunday and were then shot dead, an ambulance service said, as the U.S. secretary of state and three Arab foreign ministers visited the country for a summit.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, in the city of Hadera, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Tel Aviv.
It occurred five days after an Arab citizen of Israel stabbed at least four people to death in the southern city of Beersheba, before he was fatally shot by a passerby.
Surveillance camera footage broadcast on Israeli television stations showed two men opening fire with assault rifles on a main street in Hadera.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said two people were killed by the assailants. Police and the ambulance service said the two gunmen were shot dead.
“Luckily, our officers managed to neutralize the assailants and prevent a bigger terrorist attack,” national police spokesman Eli Levy said on Israel’s Kan television.
In southern Israel, the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, three countries that normalized relations with Israel in 2020, convened for a summit with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in attendance.
Israeli security officials have cautioned about an escalation in attacks on Israelis in the run-up to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in April this year — a volatile period in the past.
Jordan’s King Abdullah is due to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Monday in what is widely seen in Israel as an attempt to calm tensions ahead of the holiday period, which also includes Easter and Passover.
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