Tel Aviv police district commander Peretz Amar told reporters on Sunday that a truck explosion in Tel Aviv that killed the driver could have been an attempted terrorist attack, Israeli media reported.
Terrorist attack committed in Tel Aviv
“It is difficult to identify the body,” Amar said, adding that the police are certain that the driver who was killed in the blast on Sunday evening, was not an “innocent civilian, but somebody who was carrying an explosive device.”
Amar stressed that the man’s identity is crucial to determine whether the explosion was an attempted terrorist attack, adding that a passerby injured in the incident may be able to help the investigation.
The blast came as the city remains on high alert amid rising tensions in the region over the war in Gaza. It is unclear whether the attack is linked to the difficult security situation.
Possible war crime
Israeli airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah last month were an indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians that could amount to a war crime, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.
Israel said on July 20 that its warplanes struck Houthi military installations near Hodeidah.
The attack targeted oil facilities and a power plant. According to HRW, the attack killed at least six people and injured at least 80. It came a day after a Houthi drone struck the Israeli economic centre of Tel Aviv, killing one person, which HRW said could also be a war crime.
Retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Hodeidah hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two cargo cranes at the port, as well as a power plant in the province’s Salif district, Human Rights Watch said. It also added:
The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes.
Satellite images analysed showed that the oil tanks had been burning for at least three days, creating an environmental problem, HRW said in its report. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
Hodeidah, under Houthi control since 2021, is crucial for delivering food and other essentials to Yemen’s import-dependent population. About 70 per cent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 per cent of humanitarian aid passes through the port.
The Houthis have launched rockets and drones at Israel and disrupted global trade across the Red Sea in response to Israel’s attack on Gaza, further destabilising the Middle East as the war in the Palestinian enclave continues for 10 months.
