HAMAS’S military wing claimed responsibility today for a mass shooting in Tel Aviv that left seven people dead and 16 wounded.

The Palestinian resistance organisation said that Mohammed Mesek and Ahmed Himouni, the gunmen who carried out the attack, were from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli police said the two had opened fire on Tuesday evening in the Jaffa district of Tel Aviv, with their targets including a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that had stopped at a station. 

The attackers were shot dead by security guards and armed pedestrians, the police said.

The shooting came moments before Iran launched a massive barrage of rockets towards Israel, sending people into bomb shelters across the country.

It remains unclear how the two men had entered Israel from the West Bank. 

The Israeli security agency and the army are also reported to have arrested several suspects in Hebron and Jerusalem on suspicion of having helped the men carry out their attack.

Locals have left flowers and candles at the light rail stop, where bullet holes peppered the signs and benches.

Maya Brandwine said on Wednesday that she had been at a coffee shop on the street when the shooting broke out. During the subsequent Iranian missile attack, she took cover in a bomb shelter as police scoured the area for suspects.

“It’s a nightmare and we’re starting to get used to it,” she said, blaming the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the violence.

Israel has been waging war on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank since the surprise Hamas attack of October 7 last year, during which 1,139 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage.

At least 41,788 people have been killed and 96,625 wounded in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, according to the Palestinian authorities, though the true toll is likely to be far higher as many people are missing, with some likely lying under the rubble of bombed-out buildings.

Medical journal the Lancet has estimated that the final death toll could reach 186,000.

Violence in the West Bank has also surged, with Israeli troops or settlers killing at least 682 people in raids or attacks since last October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, Israel claimed today that the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Rawhi Mushtaha, had been killed in a strike three months ago.

Mr Mushtaha was one of Hamas’s “most senior operatives” and had a direct say in decisions about where fighters were deployed, according to the Israeli authorities.