Jerusalem Synagogue Shooting: 7 Dead In Third Incident Of Violence Between Israel, Palestine In 2 Days
Jerusalem Synagogue Shooting: The Palestinian gunman open fired killing seven and injuring several before being shot dead by the police.
In the third incident of violence within two days, a Palestinian gunman killed seven people and wounded several others in a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday. The gunman was later shot dead by the police.
The attack occurred on International Holocaust Remembrance Day during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest and amid the ongoing high tensions between Israel and Palestine after the former raided West Bank killing nine Palestinians on Thursday.
According to Reuters, police said the gunman arrived at around 8.15 p.m. and opened fire, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police. TV footage showed several victims lying on the road outside the synagogue.
"We arrived to the scene extremely quickly and it was horrible. Injured people lying on the street," said Shimon Alfasi, from the Israeli ambulance service.
The report mentions that police described the attack as a "terrorist incident". However, the shooting incident has escalated the fears of an increase in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in a raid in Jenin on that killed at least nine Palestinians.
Police identified the gunman as a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who appeared to have acted alone in carrying out the attack. The deadly incident occurred in an area that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war, reported Reuters.
The statement added that the gunman tried to flee by car but was pursued by police and shot dead.
A spokesman of the Islamist group Hamas hailed the action as "a response to the crime conducted by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation's criminal actions". Another militant group Islamic Jihad also praised the attack without claiming responsibility, the Reuters report added.
Different scenes were visible across Ramallah, the largest city in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. People were seen gathering for celebratory gunfire while the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where some of the wounded were treated, crowds chanted "Death to Terrorists".
Reacting to the incident, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged people not to take the law into their own hands and added that measures had been decided and the cabinet would meet on Saturday.
The White House and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the shooting and urged "utmost restraint". It came days before a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and the West Bank, as reported by Reuters.
Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the site of the attack.
"The government has to respond, God willing this is what will happen," he told a waiting crowd, the report added.
Israel, Palestine Trade Fires
Tensions soared early Friday morning after the Israeli army launched airstrikes on Gaza following rocket launches by Palestine militants towards southern Israel, as reported by the news agency AP.
Security sources in Gaza told AFP that there were 15 strikes targeting militant sites.
Palestinian militants fired five rockets at Israel. Three were intercepted, one fell in an open area and another fell short inside Gaza, the military said as reported by AP. There has been no immediate report of casualties.
The exchange of fire comes after an Israel raid in the occupied West Bank killed nine Palestinians, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman. The AP report mentioned the raid as the deadliest single raid in the territory in over two decades. The deadly violence poses an early test for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
West Bank Raid
Israel’s military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp in West Bank claiming nine lives and left 20 wounded. The military said the raid was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis. The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids.
The Israeli military stated its forces moved in to capture Islamic Jihad members plotting "big assaults". The Palestinian president accused Israel of a "massacre" in Jenin, the site of many operations in recent months. The incursions are part of an anti-terrorism drive launched by the Israeli military in April.
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