Seven dead in shooting in front of East Jerusalem synagogue, the same day that the Holocaust is remembered

At least seven people died this Friday in a shooting in front of an East Jerusalem synagogue and the author of the attack was killed on the spot, Israeli police and medical sources reported. It happened the day after an Israeli raid on a Palestinian camp.

“Tonight around 8:30 p.m., a terrorist approached a synagogue on Neve Yaakov Avenue in Jerusalem and opened fire on people in the area,” a police statement said.

“Police forces quickly arrived at the scene, confronted the terrorist” and he “was neutralized,” he added.

A police spokesman said that seven people died.

The AFP saw the agents inspecting a white vehicle, on suspicion that it belonged to the perpetrator of the attack.

The Magen David Adom (MDA, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross), reported 10 people shot, including a 70-year-old and a 14-year-old.

The United States condemned the “horrendous” attack.

“We stand in solidarity with the Israeli people,” said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, “firmly condemned” the “particularly abominable” deadly attack carried out this Friday against a synagogue in East Jerusalem, the same day that the Holocaust is remembered.

The attack occurred during Shabbat prayers in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish settlement neighborhood in the eastern sector of Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967.

israeli attack

Earlier, nine people were killed in an Israeli raid on the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Another Palestinian was killed later that day by Israeli fire in a separate incident near Ramallah, also in the West Bank.

Israel claimed that it was a “counter-terrorism” operation against the armed organization Islamic Jihad.

The Palestinian Authority called it a “massacre” and announced that it was ceasing security cooperation with Israel.

According to the UN, there have not been as many deaths in an Israeli operation in the West Bank since records of those operations began in 2005.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday to “end the endless cycle of violence” and said he was “very concerned about the sharp increase in Palestinian deaths in Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank.” (YO)