Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals

A day after the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in years, a Palestinian gunman attacked a synagogue outside of Jerusalem on Friday, killing seven people and injuring three others. This increased concerns about a bloody domino effect.

Before being shot and killed by police, the gunman is said to have arrived at the scene around 8.15 p.m. and started firing, hitting a number of people. TV footage showed numerous casualties being treated by rescue personnel while they were lying in the road outside the synagogue.

It was terrible when we soon arrived on the scene. According to Shimon Alfasi from the Israeli emergency service, injured persons were laying on the street.

After months of skirmishes in the West Bank that culminated in a raid in Jenin on Thursday that left at least nine Palestinians dead, the attack, which police labeled as a “terrorist incident,” highlighted concerns of a rise in violence.

According to a statement from the police, the shooter was a 21-year-old East Jerusalem-based Palestinian who appears to have operated alone in carrying out the attack in a region that Israel annexed to Jerusalem following the 1967 Middle East conflict.

It stated that he attempted to flee in a car but was shot dead by police after being chased.

The action was lauded as “a response to the crime performed by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation’s criminal deeds,” according to a spokesman for the Islamist movement Hamas. Islamic Jihad, a less well-known militant organization, also applauded the attack without taking responsibility.

News of the attack sparked spontaneous street gatherings and bursts of celebratory gunfire in Ramallah, the largest city in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, outside Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, where some of the injured were treated, crowds chanted “Death to Terrorists.”

Three Palestinians were brought to the hospital after being shot by an Israeli settler in an incident close to the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to the Palestinian health ministry, indicating the possibility of further escalation.

It further stated that a 16-year-old Palestinian victim of an Israeli shooting on Wednesday died as a result of his injuries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against using force against the law after consulting with security officials, but he also said that steps had been chosen and that the cabinet will convene on Saturday.

The White House and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced Friday’s shooting, which took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, and demanded “utmost moderation.” It happened a few days before American Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to Israel and the West Bank.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security in Netanyahu’s new government and the head of one of the hardline nationalist parties, visited the scene of the attack. He was greeted there to a mix of applause and rage.

He informed the gathered people, “God willing, this is what will happen. The government has to respond.”