On Friday evening, seven people were killed near a synagogue by an assailant who died after a chase. On Saturday two people were injured by another attacker.
Two attacks were carried out by two Palestinians in the Israeli city of Jerusalem on Friday evening and Saturday morning, killing seven and injuring several. The violence comes against the backdrop of a sharp escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Thursday, after the death of nine Palestinians during an Israeli army raid in Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces were placed on high alert as calls for restraint grew from abroad.
Seven people killed on Friday night
On Friday evening, an armed Palestinian shot and killed seven people near a synagogue in East Jerusalem during Shabbat prayers. This shooting occurred in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish settlement neighborhood in East Jerusalem, part of the Holy City annexed by Israel. The attack took place on the evening of World Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The shooter is a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, who opened fire in the street around 8:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m. French time), according to the police. “I saw the terrorist arrive by car. He stopped in the middle of the crossroads, opened fire from his car” and continued to shoot at people who were approaching to help those affected, said Shalom Borohov, a 48-year-old barber who lives near the synagogue, told AFP.
The man was shot. According to the police, “the terrorist was neutralized and pronounced dead” after a car chase and a shootout with the police. According to Israeli media and Palestinians, his name is Khayri Alqam.
It is “one of the worst attacks we have suffered in recent years,” Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai told reporters on the spot. The Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, said it had identified a total of ten victims hit by bullets, including a 70-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy.
The police in the following hours “arrested 42 suspects for questioning, some are members of the terrorist’s family,” the police said in a statement. Others among the arrested suspects live in her neighborhood in East Jerusalem, she added. In a separate statement, police said Israeli forces had been placed on “high alert”.
This attack has not yet been claimed.
Another attack carried out by a 13-year-old boy
On Saturday, another attack took place in this Israeli city. A father and son were shot and wounded in a new offensive in East Jerusalem. The attack took place near the City of David archaeological site in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, the eastern part occupied and annexed by Israel, Israeli police said.
The two injured are a 23-year-old man and a 47-year-old man hit “by bullets in the upper body”, according to Magen David Adom.
A 13-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem shot the gun. He was “incapacitated and injured” by bystanders who held a license to carry weapons, Israeli police said.
This attack has also not been claimed.
Renewed violence in this territory
The attacks on Friday and Saturday are part of an outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestine.
An Israeli raid on Thursday in Jenin, a city in the northern occupied West Bank, had already this week raised fears of renewed violence. Nine Palestinians were killed in this incursion and several people were injured. The Israeli army said it carried out a “counter-terrorism operation” there targeting members of the Islamic Jihad organization who, according to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, were planning an attack in Israel.
A tenth Palestinian was killed Thursday by Israeli fire in Al-Ram, near Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. In retaliation, rockets were fired overnight from Thursday to Friday towards Israel from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian territory under the control of Hamas since 2007.
Israel responded overnight with airstrikes against what the army described as Hamas’ “underground rocket factory” in Gaza. No casualties were recorded in this exchange of missiles.
the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had already said on Friday “deeply concerned about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories”. It “is time to exercise the utmost restraint,” he insisted in a statement, calling Friday’s attack “particularly despicable” on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
But the situation is far from calming down on the spot: the news of the attack on Friday was followed by scenes of jubilation in Ramallah and in the Gaza Strip by residents waving Palestinian flags, according to AFP journalists. . While at the scene of the shooting, dozens of Israelis greeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with cries of “Death to the Arabs!”
The attack on Jerusalem “is a natural reaction to the crimes of the occupation (Israeli, editor’s note) against our Palestinian people”, declared in Gaza Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, recalling the death of nine Palestinians in Jenin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a “strong” and “quick” Israeli response on Saturday evening. “We are not looking for escalation but we are ready for any scenario,” he said.
International call for calm
From Washington to Moscow, many foreign leaders expressed their horror on Saturday after the two successive attacks in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority refrained from condemning and held that Israel was “fully responsible for the dangerous escalation”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah earlier this week to call for de-escalation. The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell on Saturday called on Israel to use lethal force only as a “last resort” while denouncing the “appalling terrorist attack” perpetrated on Friday.
The attack was condemned by the American president, who called on the Israeli prime minister to assure him of “the unwavering commitment of the United States to the security of Israel”. Russian diplomacy also said on Saturday “deeply concerned” and called on all parties to “maximum restraint”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “deeply upset” on Saturday. “Attacking synagogue worshipers on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Shabbat is appalling,” UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly tweeted Friday night. “We stand with our Israeli friends,” he added.
“Firm condemnation of this heinous act. The spiral of violence must be avoided at all costs”, also wrote the French President, Emmanuel Macron, Saturday on Twitter. “In a context of growing tensions, we call on all parties to avoid actions that could fuel the spiral of violence,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
