Seven  Israeli civilians were injured in a terror attack at the Petah Tikvah open air market (shuk). All the injured have been taken to the nearby Beilinson Hospital, and are in satisfactory condition. In addition, one additional person was taken to hospital after suffering a panic attack.

At approximately 4:45 pm shots were heard at the Petah Tikvah market, in the center of the city. Several bystanders were lightly injured.

The terrorist’s weapon, a home made sub machine gun then malfunctioned. He threw it away, and started stabbing bystanders with a screwdriver he had, injuring more civilians. Bystanders overpowered him, and the police took him into custody.

A police spokesperson said it was lucky that the weapon malfunctioned, otherwise it would have been much worse. “We believe he intended to spray the entire area of the shuk with automatic fire”. “Had he succeeded in carrying out his plan, we could be looking at dozens of casualties, not seven lightly injured civilians”.

Petah Tikvah is one of Tel Aviv’s major suburbs, about 10 miles from the city. It is one of Israel’s biggest cities, with over 220,000 inhabitants.