At least seven people were shot dead outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem on Friday night, in the deadliest attack in the city since 2008 and amid one of the bloodiest months in Israel and occupied territories, outside of an all-out war. year.
The killings, in a Jewish section of the city, are the latest escalation of a particularly violent cycle in the region, where the situation – which has never calmed down – has begun to turn sour. worse last spring with a wave of single Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
That sequence has prompted the Israeli Army to intensify its attacks on Palestinian areas of the West Bank. The Israeli campaign resulted in the deaths of more than 170 Palestinians by 2022, the highest annual death toll in more than a decade and a half, and triggered a new wave of Palestinian anger and belligerence.
Friday’s attack came a day after nine Palestinians were murdered during a protest. an Israeli army raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank – the bloodiest raid in years.
This sharp increase in bloodshed has prompted Israelis and Palestinians across Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to brace themselves for the possibility of greater conflict. And all is coming with the birth of a new Israeli government – the most rightist in the history of Israel – their leading figures have promised to take even stronger action against the Palestinians and assert exclusive rights to land that Palestinians hope will form the backbone of a future Palestinian state future.
During Friday’s attack, Israeli police said a lone gunman began shooting at people with a shotgun around 8:15 p.m. outside a building used as a synagogue in Neve. Yaakov, an Israeli settlement at the northern tip of East Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed.
According to police, seven people were killed and three were injured.
“One of the worst terrorist attacks we have encountered in recent years,” Yaakov Shabtai, inspector general of the Israeli police, said after arriving at the scene Friday night.
After opening fire, the attacker drove away and was stopped by a squad of police about five minutes later, according to a police statement. The assailant was later shot dead by police after a chase and gunfight.
Police later described the attacker as a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem who acted alone, but officials did not specify his ethnicity. Both Israeli and Palestinian media reported he was Palestinian.
Five of the victims were lying dead on the ground by the time paramedics from Magen David Adom, an emergency response team, arrived on the scene and two others had died after being taken to the hospital, according to the police. a group statement.
Shimon Alfasi, a paramedic on the team, said: “We got to the scene extremely quickly and it was horrible. “Injured people lie on the street on Neve Yaakov Avenue. A 70-year-old woman lost consciousness from being hit by a bullet.”
Inspector General Shabtai described the attack as an act of terrorism. “He got out of the car not far from here and started killing people with a pistol,” he said at the scene. “Everybody who crossed his path — he shot at them from close range.”
The shooting occurred at the end of a particularly deadly month in the occupied West Bank. Since the start of the year, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in the area in clashes with the Israelis, mainly in Israeli military attacks.
Thursday’s Jenin raid, the deadliest attack in years, prompted the Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that governs major Palestinian cities in the territory, to announce that it was stopping coordination with the Palestinian Authority. Israeli security agencies in protest. That move, if fully implemented, would suspend intelligence sharing between the two sides and potentially contribute to an increase in violence.
Officials from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, hailed Friday night’s attack in Jerusalem, seeing it as a response to the Israeli raid a day earlier.
Videos and photos also showed Palestinians across the occupied territories celebrating the attack with cheers and fireworks.
Tensions in the region have risen sharply since Israel’s new coalition government took office in late December. An alliance of hard-line nationalists and ultra-conservatives, the government has declared declared in a list of its guiding principles that the Jews had a monopoly over the occupied territories.
The government’s new minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, caused particularly deep fear among Palestinians because he frequently called for immunity from prosecution of Israeli soldiers and a further relaxation of their rules of engagement. Until 2020, Ben-Gvir, the police supervisor, hung a large portrait in the home of a Jewish gunman who shot dead 29 Palestinians at a West Bank mosque in 1994.
Arriving at the scene of the attack on Friday, Mr. Ben-Gvir told those around him that he wanted to allow more civilians to carry guns to prevent further attacks.
“Itamar, deal with them, Itamar!” shouted by a bystander by an Israeli television station. “We have friends, Itamar. If I had been armed, I could have prevented three or four people from being killed. I don’t have a weapon. They won’t give me a gun.”
Mr. Ben-Gvir replied: “I hope that we will change our gun policy soon. More and more civilians need guns.”
He added: “The government needs to respond. With God’s help, I hope that happens.”
On some news programs, bystanders can hear chants of “Die the Terrorists” and “Die the Arabs”.
Elsewhere, the cycle of violence, punishment and punishment continues.
Israeli police say they have arrested the parents of the Jerusalem shooter. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday evening that an Israeli settler had shot and wounded a Palestinian, who was later taken to a hospital.
