Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals

Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals
# 28 January 2023 09:25 (UTC +04:00)

A Palestinian gunman killed seven people and wounded three others in a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday in an attack that heightened fears of a spiral in bloodshed, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in years, APA reports citing Reuters.

Police said the gunman arrived at around 8.15 p.m. and opened fire, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police. TV footage showed several victims lying in the road outside the synagogue being tended to by emergency workers.

"We arrived to the scene extremely quickly and it was horrible. Injured people lying on the street," said Shimon Alfasi, from the Israeli ambulance service.

The attack, which police described as a "terrorist incident", underlined fears of an escalation in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in a raid in Jenin on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians.

Police said in a statement that the gunman was a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who appeared to have acted alone in carrying out the attack in an area that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war.

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