Five people have been shot dead on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, medics say, in the third deadly attack of its kind within a week.
It happened in Bnei Brak, one of the country’s most populous ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas.
The gunman was shot dead by police, a paramedic at the scene said.
Israel security forces were on high alert after attacks by Israeli Arabs last Tuesday and Sunday, which left six people dead.
Footage from the scene shows the gunman in dark clothing crossing a road and raising an automatic weapon.
Victims were killed on adjacent streets, and one was found dead in a car, the Jerusalem Post news site says.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is holding an emergency security meeting.
“Israel is facing a wave of murderous Arab terrorism,” he said. “The security forces are operating. We will fight terror with perseverance, stubbornness and an iron fist.”
Former Prime Minister and current opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was “in the midst of a dangerous wave of terrorism that we have not seen for many years… Determined action must be taken to restore peace and security to the citizens of Israel”.
Israeli media reports say the attacker was a 27-year-old Palestinian from a village in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, praised the attack, saying “We express our blessing to the Tel Aviv operation.”
Security had already been stepped up across Israel and in the West Bank in the wake of the two previous attacks.
The first was carried out by an Israeli Arab who had planned to join the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and had served a jail sentence for security crimes. The attacker stabbed four people to death outside a shopping centre in the southern city of Beersheba.
Five days later, two other Israeli Arabs opened fire at a bus stop in the northern city of Hadera, killing two 19-year-old police officers. IS said it was behind that attack. All three assailants were shot dead.
There had been fears of further incidents in the month ahead, when the Muslim festival of Ramadan, the Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian festival of Easter coincide in a rare convergence.
