(JNS) An Israeli man was killed on Saturday evening in a Palestinian shooting attack in the heart of Tel Aviv.

Two municipal patrol officers attempted to question the terrorist, who was behaving suspiciously, at the corner of Montefiore and Allenby streets. He ignored them before, drawing a handgun from his bag and opening fire on them as they got off their motorcycles.

The victim, named as Chen Amir, 42, was a municipal security guard who had engaged the terrorist. The second officer then chased after the terrorist and shot and killed him.
Amir was evacuated to the nearby Ichilov Hospital, where he died. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.

Shabtai identified the attacker as a Palestinian from Rummanah in the Jenin area of the West Bank who was in possession of a “martyrdom” letter. The commissioner said the guards prevented a large terrorist attack.

Security services were investigating whether the Palestinian assailant had accomplices and how he entered Israel proper.

According to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the terrorist, Kamel Abu Bakr, 22, was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who had been hiding in the Jenin refugee camp for the last six months.

He did not have an entry permit into Israel proper due to this affiliation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the Israeli officers "for their alertness and for engaging, thereby thwarting a much more serious attack.

"Our security forces will settle accounts with everyone who seeks to attack us," added Netanyahu.

Last month, a Palestinian terrorist drove his car into pedestrians at a bus stop on Pinchas Rosen Street in Tel Aviv’s northeastern Ramat Hahayal neighborhood.

He then got out of the vehicle and stabbed additional victims with a sharp object. He wounded seven victims in total before being killed by an armed civilian.