A gunman opened fire and killed at least seven people outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem before being shot. After Friday’s shooting, the Magen David Adom emergency service said it was treating 10 wounded, some in critical condition.
Israeli police said the gunman was shot and killed at the scene.
“What we understand happened was a car pulled up at the front of a synagogue, a gunman got out and opened fire,” Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from East Jerusalem.
“The information is pretty confused. The figures we have now are seven people dead, including a 15-year-old boy.”
A second person was possibly in the car and the Israeli authorities were now searching that individual, Bays said.
The emergency response agency reported a total of 10 gunshot victims, including a 70-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy.
“I heard a lot of bullets,” Matanel Almalem, an 18-year-old student who lives near the synagogue, told AFP news agency at the scene.
A police statement said there was “terror attack in a synagogue in Jerusalem … The shooting terrorist was neutralised… Large police forces are at the scene”.
The attack followed a deadly Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday in the Jenin refugee camp. Nine Palestinians were killed, including an elderly woman, after dozens of Israeli soldiers attacked a house containing suspected fighters, leading to several hours of intense fighting.
Gaza fighters then fired rockets and Israel carried out air raids overnight, but the exchange was limited.
‘A natural response’
In Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told the Reuters news agency that Friday’s attack was “a response to the crime conducted by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation’s criminal actions”. He stopped short of claiming the shooting.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also praised but did not take responsibility for the attack.
Israeli military raids have become commonplace over the last year with at least 200 Palestinians – fighters and civilians – killed.
Israeli civilians and troops have also been killed in attacks by Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.
Friday’s shooting came amid heightened tensions. Palestinians marched in anger as they buried the last of the Palestinians killed by Israeli troops the day earlier.
Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank.
Crowds of Palestinians waved the flags of both Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, which rules Gaza. In the streets of the town called al-Ram, masked Palestinians threw stones and set off fireworks at Israeli police who responded with tear gas.
Israel’s opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, called Friday’s attack “horrific and heartbreaking”.
Israeli security forces deploy at the site of Friday’s attack [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
