Palestinians in Gaza City and several locations across the West Bank celebrated the attack outside an east Jerusalem synagogue which killed seven people, including a 70-year-old woman. The deadly attack targeting Israelis came a day after a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including an army raid in the occupied West Bank that killed nine people. The burst of violence also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, posing an early challenge for Israel’s new government.
Here’s all you need to know about the synagogue attack:
- A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, a settlement with a large ultra-Orthodox population.
- The gunman, identified by Israeli police as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident, fled in a car after opening fire on civilians, police said.
- Police said they chased after the attacker and killed him in an exchange of fire. They also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker.
- While there was no immediate claim of responsibity, a spokesperson for the ruling Hamas militant group in Gaza said the attack was “a revenge and natural response” to the deadly military raid Thursday.
- The attack was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to country’s foreign ministry.
- It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years and raised the likelihood of more bloodshed.
- In Palestinian city of Ramallah, large crowds cheered and waved Palestinian flags, fired guns into the air, honked horns and distributed sweets.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had held a security assessment and decided on “immediate actions.”
- Crowds outside the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where some of the wounded were treated, chanted “Death to Terrorists”.
- The attack escalated tensions that were already heightened following Thursday’s raid in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, where nine people, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, were killed.
(Compiled with inputs from AP, AFP, Reuters)
