Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the mobilisation of police and army reserves after separate attacks that killed three people in the West Bank and Tel Aviv on Friday.
The attacks came amid mounting Palestinian anger over Israeli police raids on Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as worshippers observe the holy month of Ramadan.
Rockets were fired into Israel on Thursday from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza to the south and from southern Lebanon to the north, prompting retaliatory pre-dawn strikes on Friday.
One man was killed and five people were injured in a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv late on Friday, hours after two women died and another was critically injured when assailants opened fire on their car near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu ordered the Israel Police to “mobilise all reserve border police units” and directed the military to “mobilise additional forces" following the attack in Tel Aviv, according to a statement from his office.
Police said a vehicle travelling from north to south hit people near Tel Aviv's Charles Clore Promenade in a “terror attack against civilians”.
A police officer who was nearby arrived at the scene to find several people injured and an overturned car. The officer "neutralised" the driver when he tried to pull a gun, police said.
An Israeli security source identified the driver as an Israeli Arab from the town of Kafr Qassem.
Israel’s rescue service said the tourist who died was a 30-year-old Italian, while five other British and Italian tourists — including a 74-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl — were receiving medical treatment for mild to moderate injuries.
Meanwhile, Israel's army said it had launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of the shooting which killed two sisters and seriously wounded their mother.
It said the victims were fired on as their vehicle passed through Hamra junction in the northern part of the Jordan Valley.
Oded Revivi, mayor of the nearby illegal settlement of Efrat, said the women were Israeli sisters aged 16 and 20, and the wounded woman was their mother.
The UK Foreign Office said the sisters had joint Israeli-British citizenship.
The attacks come days after the US State Department advised American citizens about the “increased risk of violence” in Israel because of the conflict.
The US “strongly condemns” the “terrorist attacks” on Friday, State Department principal deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims’ families and loved ones, and wish a full recovery to the injured. The three horrific attacks today, in which three were killed and at least eight others wounded, affected citizens of Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom,” he added in a statement.
“The targeting of innocent civilians of any nationality is unconscionable.”
