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7 people killed in Tel Aviv mass shooting moments before Iran launches missile attack on Israel, police say

Israeli police said Wednesday that a total of seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening minutes before Iran fired a barrage of rockets at the country. Two Palestinian men from the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron opened fire in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, including shooting directly into a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that was stopped at a station.

Police said the two gunmen had no prior arrests, though one had been involved in disturbing the peace at a demonstration. The two men were shot and killed by security guards and armed pedestrians.

Police and paramedics who responded to the scene treated another 16 people injured in the shooting as sirens blared across the country, sending people into bomb shelters as Iran launched its attack. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in remarks addressing the Iranian missile attack, offered "condolences to the families of the victims of the terror attack in Jaffa and my best wishes for a complete recovery to the injured."

Shooting attack in Tel Aviv
Israeli forensic officers work at the site of a shooting attack in the mixed Arab-Jewish neighbourhood of Jaffa in Tel Aviv on Oct. 1, 2024.  Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images

U.S. and Israeli officials said there were no reports of Israeli civilian casualties from the Iranian missile attack.

The explosions over Israeli cities rang out just hours after a senior White House official told CBS News the U.S. had "indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel." 

That warning, which Israel's military said had been communicated from Washington, came after Israel announced the beginning of "limited, localized, and targeted ground raids" against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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