Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians continue. On Friday, a gunman shot and killed seven people during Saturday morning prayers near a Jewish synagogue in East Jerusalem. It is the latest episode in a new outbreak of deadly violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli counterpart to the Red Cross, said it had identified a total of ten victims of gunfire, including a 70-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy. 42 people were arrested, police announced on Saturday morning.
“Seven civilians” were killed by an armed assailant who opened fire at around 8:15 p.m. (6:15 p.m. GMT) on the street near this synagogue in Neve Ya’akov, a ghetto neighborhood in East Jerusalem that is part of the Holy City. is part of. Israel, according to an Israel Police statement. Police chief Kobi Shabtai told Israeli television that it was “one of the worst attacks in recent years” against Israelis.
Police said the shooter, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, was shot by officers after fleeing in a car. The attack, which comes in the context of new violence between Israelis and Palestinians for 36 hours, was immediately condemned by Washington.
Israel’s Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right figure, went to the site of the attack, where AFP reporters saw three bodies lying in the street. “I heard a lot of gunshots,” Matanel Almalem, an 18-year-old student who lives next to the synagogue, told AFP.
“This is absolutely appalling,” State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. “We condemn in the strongest terms this apparent terrorist attack”, he said, noting that there was no change in the schedule of US diplomat Antony Blinken, who was to visit Egypt on Sunday and then Jerusalem on Monday and Tuesday. There will be and Ramallah. He said he would discuss “measures to be taken to reduce tensions”. In a foreign ministry press release, France condemned Friday evening’s “horrible terrorist attack” in East Jerusalem, where at least seven people were killed in a shooting near a synagogue.
“At a time of prayer, and on a day of international commemoration for the victims of the Holocaust, this attack against civilians is particularly abhorrent”, affirms the Quai d’Orsay.
Sponsor Hamas?
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, a Hamas spokesman said the shooting was a response to an Israeli army raid on Jenin on Thursday, in which nine Palestinians were killed in an “anti-terrorist” operation. The shooting comes a day after nine Palestinians were killed in a raid by Israeli armed forces on a camp in Jenin, a city north of the occupied West Bank.
In response to the Israeli attack in Jenin, the Palestinian Authority decided to end security cooperation with Israel, the first since 2020. France urged Israelis and Palestinians to “refrain from promoting escalation” and the United States said it was “deeply concerned by the escalation of violence”.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Thursday that his country was “not looking for an escalation” but was preparing “for all scenarios”.
