In one of the bloodiest assaults on Israelis in years, a Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an East Jerusalem synagogue, killing at least seven people. This incident came one day after a fatal raid by Israeli soldiers.
After the attacker originally succeeded in escaping, the attack was stopped when he was shot by police.
According to authorities, the shooter entered at around 8:15 p.m. local time on Friday and started firing, striking many persons before being shot and killed by officers.
TV footage showed numerous casualties being treated by rescue personnel while they were laying in the road outside the synagogue.
A Jerusalem police spokesman confirmed that the shooter had murdered seven people and injured three more after previous reports stated that at least ten people had been hurt.
A woman in her 70s was among the fatalities, according to Israel’s rescue agency.
A 15-year-old kid was subsequently reported to be recuperating following surgery at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital.
The executions happened the day after an Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank resulted in the deaths of nine Palestinians.
According to Israeli police, it was a “terror attack” that happened in a synagogue in Neve Ya’akov, which Israelis regard as a neighbourhood within Jerusalem but which Palestinians and the majority of the international community view as occupied territory that was illegally annexed following the Middle East war of 1967.
Israeli police used the phrase “the terrorist was neutralised,” which often denotes that the assailant has been put to death.
His condition wasn’t immediately confirmed.
There were no early information on what motivated the assailant, a Palestinian man of age 21, who lived in East Jerusalem, according to a statement from the police.
Doron Turjeman, the head of the Jerusalem police, pledged a “aggressive and extensive” search for anybody who had assisted him.
A picture of the gun the police claim the attacker used was also made public by the police.
According to Israel’s foreign ministry, the attack was the bloodiest against Israelis since a massacre in 2008 that left eight people dead in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.
It had the potential to prompt a stern response from Israel given the situation’s timing and location.
Three Palestinians were shot in an incident in the northern West Bank city of Nablus and were transported to the hospital as a sign of the possibility for future escalation.
At first, it was unclear who their assailant was.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defense, met with the head of the military and other top security officials and gave them orders to support the police and fortify defences around Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
According to Mr. Gallant, “Israel’s defence establishment will act decisively and firmly against terror and will reach everybody engaged in the incident.”
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