Gunman kills 7 in Jerusalem synagogue attack, officials say
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, and wounding three others before police shot and killed him, officials said.
It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years. It took place as worshippers were celebrating the Jewish Sabbath and came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine people in the West Bank.
Friday’s attack set off public celebrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where people fired guns into the air, honked horns and distributed sweets.
The burst of violence, which also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, has posed an early challenge for Israel’s new ultranationalist-dominated government and cast a cloud over a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region set for Sunday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-pierre said the U.S. strongly condemned the attack and was “shocked and saddened by the loss of life,” noting it came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Israeli police said the attack occurred in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish area in east Jerusalem with a large ultra-orthodox population.
Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman confirmed seven deaths, in addition to the shooter, and said three people were wounded. Police identified the attacker as a 21-yearold east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant huddled with Israel’s military chief and other top security officials and instructed them to assist police and strengthen defenses near Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s MADA rescue service said the dead included a 70-year-old woman.
The bloodshed was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Overnight Thursday, Gaza militants fired rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s shooting. In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the attack was “a revenge and natural response” to the killing of nine Palestinians in Jenin on Thursday. A 10th Palestinian was killed in separate fighting near Jerusalem.
Palestinians had marched in anger earlier Friday as they buried the last of those killed a day earlier.
Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day.
Israel’s opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, called Friday’s shooting “horrific and heartbreaking.” There was no immediate response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.