New escalation
At least seven people were killed in a gun attack in Jerusalem on Friday, police said. They were apparently attacked while exiting a synagogue. The security situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories has deteriorated significantly in recent days.
According to preliminary information from the Israeli police, the attacker waited in front of the synagogue in New Yaakov, an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, on Friday evening until the believers left the building. Then he opened fire. Seven people died, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, at least three others were injured. According to the police, the attacker was “neutralized” at the scene after the attack.
The US described the attack as “absolutely appalling”. Washington condemns this “suspected terrorist attack in the strongest possible terms,” said a spokesman for the State Department in Washington.
Deadly raid in Jenin
In the past few days, the security situation had deteriorated significantly again. The Israeli army carried out a raid in the occupied West Bank, killing nine people in the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday. The Israeli army spoke of an “anti-terrorist operation”. In addition, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, a man was killed by Israeli soldiers in al-Ram near Jerusalem on Thursday. In response, Palestinian militants fired rockets, which were intercepted.
The radical Islamic Jihad group said the rockets were “part of a message” to show that “Palestinian blood doesn’t come cheap.” Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which competes with it for dominance in Gaza, have vowed vengeance. Israel, in turn, responded with airstrikes against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Blinken travels to the Middle East
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wants to try to de-escalate during an upcoming visit to the Middle East on Monday and Tuesday. He wants to travel to Israel, the occupied West Bank and Egypt. He will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since he took office as head of the far right-wing Israeli government. A meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also planned.
The aim of the talks is “to take steps to de-escalate tensions in order to end the cycle of violence,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price in Washington. The White House expressed similar concern about the “increasing spiral of violence in the West Bank as well as the rockets from Gaza”. Washington urgently urges a “de-escalation,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. France had also already appealed to the parties to the conflict to “refrain from a further escalation of violence”.
