Amid a broken sense of safety and with the city far quieter than usual, hundreds visit site of deadly shooting to express solidarity
TEL AVIV — Hundreds of candles flickered outside Tel Aviv’s Simta Bar on Saturday afternoon, the scene of a deadly shooting attack 24 hours earlier that left two dead and six wounded. Amidst cloudy skies and a gentle rain, and with the gunman still at large, a crowd of neighbors and curious onlookers gathered to commemorate the two victims and discuss their shattered sense of security.
While the country has been reeling from near-daily terror attacks for the past three months, the point-blank shooting was still a shock to many.
“This looks like one of those terrible school shootings in America,” said Tal Liebrecht, 36, who moved from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv five months ago, as passersby snapped pictures of bullet holes in a bus station outside the bar. Liebrecht, who lives a few blocks away, came to Simta Bar a few weeks ago to watch a soccer game.
“This hits close to home,” he said. “Tel Aviv feels kind of immune to these things.”
Mor Aloni, 28, who works in human resources and lives a few blocks away, also chimed in: “It was so weird on Friday afternoon when it happened. There was so much noise and so many ambulances, and then suddenly total silence. They closed everything. All of the bars had signs that they’re closed out of respect for what happened. Normally I can hear people sitting all night at all the bars near me, but last night I heard nothing.”
Her friend Anat Mor, 25, who made aliyah from Norway last year, was stuck at the nearby Dizengoff Center mall for two hours as police flooded the area. She then passed by the site of the shooting on her way to stay with Aloni.
“We just stayed in her apartment all night, we didn’t know what to do,” she said. “But now we wanted to go out, we wanted to see where it was, we didn’t know there would be candles. We just came because we wanted to feel connected.”
On Saturday afternoon, parts of central Tel Aviv felt deserted, though it was unclear if this was due to the attack or the cold weather. Cafes and bars seemed about half-full, as patrons huddled by outdoor heaters and a light rain fell on the empty streets.
“At first, we thought it was a criminal act, because it was a bar, but then slowly we learned that it was nationalistically motivated,” said Linda Menashe, 62, a retired police officer who has lived for 45 years on Dizengoff Street and was a few hundred meters away when the shooting occurred. “I feel less secure because they didn’t catch him, but personally, I’m still going out and about,” she said.
“I personally feel safe in my country. We have an amazing country, and nothing can kill it, not Daesh [the Islamic State] and not terrorism,” Menashe added.
Long-time resident Moshe Kasbian, 59, who has lived near Dizengoff his entire life, said that unlike Jerusalem, few people carry their own weapons in Tel Aviv, which is why the gunman was able to escape without being shot. “This needs to stop,” he said. “It can’t be that someone is going out to celebrate their birthday and suddenly someone comes up and shoots them.”
“This is the first time for me that it’s someplace close,” said Ilana Foyer, who made aliyah from Australia over two years ago and lives two blocks away. “Things have happened before in Tel Aviv, like the rockets last summer, but this feels different,” said Foyer, who came with a group of friends. Still, Foyer said she felt safe in Tel Aviv, and that the city was returning to normal. “Lots of places were closed last night,” she said. “But tonight I’m celebrating my 30th birthday, and we’re all going out.”
As reported by The Times of Israel