Police searching for suspect in Tel Aviv gay club shooting

TEL AVIV, Israel – Hundreds of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people at a youth club in the worst ever attack on homosexuals in Israel.

The Tel Aviv shooting shocked the Mediterranean city, which prides itself on its live-and-let-live attitude and boasts a thriving gay community. The brazen attack drew condemnations from the city’s mayor, from Cabinet ministers, the country’s chief rabbis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We’ll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him,” Netanyahu said of the killer, speaking at the Israeli Cabinet’s weekly meeting.

A masked man entered the center for gay teens in downtown Tel Aviv late Saturday night, pulled out a pistol and opened fire, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The shooter then concealed his weapon and fled the scene on foot into the busy streets outside the center, Rosenfeld said. The dead were identified as a 26-year-old man who was a counselor at the center and a 17-year-old girl. Eleven people were wounded, four of them seriously.