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A gunman killed seven people in an east Jerusalem synagogue on Friday, Israeli police said, in a dramatic escalation of violence that followed a deadly raid in the West Bank the previous day.
The shooting in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood in east Jerusalem came even as international calls for calm increased after Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip exchanged missile fire on Friday.
“At around 8:30 pm (1830 GMT), a terrorist arrived at a synagogue on Neve Yaakov Boulevard in Jerusalem and proceeded to shoot several people in the area,” a police statement said.
A police spokesman put the death toll at seven, with others injured. The gunman was shot and killed at the scene.
The Magen David Adom emergency response service reported a total of 10 shooting victims, including a 70-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy.
Victims of a shooting attack lie covered on the ground near a synagogue in Jerusalem, Friday, January 27, 2023.
Israeli forces work near the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov
Emergency service personnel and Israeli security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in an Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem settler neighborhood, on January 27, 2023.
Israeli border police clash with Palestinian stone throwers in the town of A-Ram, north of Jerusalem, on January 27, 2023, as Palestinians from across the West Bank protest to condemn the killing of nine Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp during an Israeli raid on January 26, 2023
“I heard a lot of bullets,” Matanel Almalem, an 18-year-old student who lives near the synagogue, told AFP.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir attended the scene shortly after, an AFP photographer reported. Police were dismantling a white vehicle believed to belong to the shooter.
The United States condemned the attack as “absolutely horrifying.”
“Our commitment to Israel’s security remains unwavering and we are in direct contact with our Israeli partners,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
Just a few hours earlier, Washington had urged “de-escalation” over the violence in the West Bank and the rocket fire from Gaza.
Israeli security forces search a car at the site of a reported attack in an East Jerusalem settler neighborhood.
Emergency services work at the scene of a shooting at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov area of Jerusalem, Israel, on January 27, 2023.
Earlier, Palestinians had marched angrily as they buried the last of 10 people killed by Israeli fire on Thursday, but the likelihood of a major conflagration appeared to be dwindling after the deadliest Israeli raid in two decades.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters broke out after the funeral of a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and in other parts of the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the disputed capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Thursday’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp escalated into a gunfight that killed at least nine Palestinians, while clashes elsewhere left a tenth dead.
Gaza militants then fired rockets and Israel carried out airstrikes overnight, but the exchange was limited, following a familiar pattern that allows both sides to retaliate without causing a big bang.
Israel’s defense minister has instructed the army to prepare for further attacks in the Gaza Strip “if necessary”, which also seems to leave open the possibility that the violence will subside.
Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in an Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem settler neighborhood, January 27, 2023.
Members of the Zakah Rescue and Recovery team evacuate a body after a shooting attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem
As residents of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank remained on edge Friday, midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, often a catalyst for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, passed in relative calm.
At the 22-year-old’s funeral, crowds of Palestinians waved the flags of Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, and the militant Hamas, which rules Gaza.
On the streets of the town called al-Ram, masked Palestinians hurled stones and launched fireworks at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas.
But Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes seemed limited to prevent it from escalating into a full-blown war. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several minor skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Palestinian rockets were fired into southern Israel, while Israel’s non-lethal airstrikes were on targets in Gaza, such as training camps and an underground rocket manufacturing site.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed the army dealt a “big blow” to Palestinian militants in Gaza and said the army was preparing to attack “high-quality targets… until peace is restored to the citizens of Israel.”
Israeli police were present in Jerusalem as dozens of Muslim worshipers gathered to pray in the stone courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and chanted in solidarity with those killed in the Jenin raid.
Tensions at the holy site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, have sparked violence in the past, including a bloody war in Gaza in 2021. The site is considered the third holiest in Islam and the holiest in Judaism. .
Forensic work on victims of a shooting near a synagogue in Jerusalem, Friday, January 27, 2023
Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks to Israeli forces near the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov.
Israeli security forces cordon off the site of an alleged attack in a settler neighborhood
Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids on the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.
Jenin, which was a major militant stronghold during the 2000-05 intifada and has re-emerged as such, has been the focus of many Israeli operations. Among those killed in Thursday’s raid were seven militants and a 61-year-old woman.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to an Associated Press tally.
Israel says most of the dead were militants, but young people protesting against the incursions and others who did not take part in the clashes also died.