Police said that the terrorist attempted to flee the scene, but was apprehended by civilians who subdued him until police forces arrived on the scene. The suspect was arrested and taken in for questioning.

Police searched the area to ensure that the terrorist did not have an accomplice.

The stabbing took place at the Panarama Building on Ben Tzvi Street, outside of a Judaica store where people were davening Mincha.

Eyewitness Shimon Vaknin said Mincha had just started when a man covered in blood fell on a number of worshipers. Vaknin said he and the rest of the mispalilim - around 15 to 20 - pushed the attacker outside and barricaded the door while he shouted in Arabic and continued to try to force his way back in. Others tried to treat the wounded man until paramedics arrived.

Vaknin said they looked outside the window and saw another critically wounded man on the pavement.

Sigal Pinchas, another eyewitness, said she was almost a victim of the attack and was struggling to keep her composure.

She had walked back to her office to grab her car keys and head to her vehicle which was parked next to the Judaica store. She walked in and heard screaming and looked out the blinds of the office window to see the attacker stabbing a victim repeatedly.

“I was supposed to be right next to the car,” she said.

One man was pronounced dead on the scene after efforts to resuscitate him failed. MDA paramedics transported two wounded people, one in critical condition and one moderately wounded, to Sourasky Medical Center in the city.  The critically wounded man was later pronounced dead at the hospital, bringing the death toll in the attack to two.

Moshe Danonberg and Yonit Ninion, MDA paramedics who arrived on the scene, said that “it was a difficult sight. At the entrance to one of the businesses in the building a 32-year-old man lay unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing, suffering from stab wounds to his upper body. Next to him, a man in his 30s lay with stab wounds to his upper body.”

The paramedics said that one floor down in the building they found an additional victim, an approximately 50-year-old man who was conscious.

The attack marked the first such incident in Tel Aviv in over a month, when a young Palestinian man armed with a screwdriver stabbed a female soldier and wounded four more bystanders before he was shot and killed by an Air Force officer who happened to be on the scene.

That attack, which occured on October 8, happened at one of the busiest places in the city -  Menachem Begin St and Mozes St, across from the Israel Defense Forces headquarters and Azrieli mall.