MIDEAST-PALESTINIANS/ISRAEL-CELEBRATIONS Gazans celebrate Jerusalem's synagogue attack

Record ID: 398783

  • Title: MIDEAST-PALESTINIANS/ISRAEL-CELEBRATIONS Gazans celebrate Jerusalem's synagogue attack
  • Date: 18th November 2014
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF WOMEN CARRYING POSTER WITH PICTURES OF TWO SUSPECTS
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Gaza
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA60P0Y024FZRR9MTG1JZI6YHSX
  • Story Text: Palestinians celebrated in the streets of Gaza on Tuesday (November 18) after an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue left four people dead.
    Two Palestinians armed with a meat cleaver and a gun killed four worshippers before being shot dead by police, the deadliest such incident in six years in the holy city amid a surge in religious conflict.
    A worshipper at the morning service in the Kehillat Bnei Torah synagogue in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of West Jerusalem said about 25 people were praying when shooting broke out.
    Israel's ambulance service said at least eight people were seriously wounded.
    Palestinian masked men distributed sweets and treats at a rally in Rafah.
    Palestinian radio described the attackers as "martyrs" and the Islamist group Hamas praised the attack. Loudspeakers at mosques in Gaza called out congratulations and youngsters handed out candy in the streets.
    Palestinian media named the attackers as Ghassan and Udai Abu Jamal, cousins from the Jerusalem district of Jabal Mukaber, where clashes broke out as Israeli security forces moved in to make arrests.
    The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said it carried out the attack.
    The synagogue attack came a day after a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged in his vehicle in Jerusalem. Israel said an autopsy showed he committed suicide, but his family said he was attacked.
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the synagogue attack was a direct result of incitement led by Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
    Violence in Jerusalem, areas of Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories has surged in the past month, fuelled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem's holiest shrine.
    Residents trace the violence in Jerusalem to July, when a Palestinian teenager was burned to death by Jewish assailants, an alleged revenge attack for the abduction and killing of three Jewish teens by Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.
    The summer war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza and a row over access to a Jerusalem compound that is sacred to Muslims and Jews alike have also been triggers for violence.
    The synagogue attack was the worst in the city since 2008, when a Palestinian gunman shot dead eight people in a religious school.

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