Seven dead in east Jerusalem synagogue shooting

JERUSALEM: A gunman killed seven people at an east Jerusalem synagogue on Friday, Israeli police said, in a dramatic escalation of violence that followed a deadly raid in the West Bank a day earlier.

The shooting in the Neve Yaakov neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem came even as international calls for calm mounted after Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip traded missile fire earlier Friday.

“At around 8:30 pm (1830 GMT), a terrorist arrived at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov boulevard in Jerusalem and proceeded to shoot at a number of people in the area,” a police statement said, adding that the shooter was “neutralised”. A police spokesman said seven people had been killed. The United States condemned the “absolutely horrific” attack.

“Our commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad, and we are in direct touch with our Israeli partners,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

Just hours earlier, Washington had urged “de-escalation” over the West Bank violence and Gaza rocket fire.

Nine people had been killed on Thursday in what Israel described as a “counter-terrorism” operation in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp.

It was one of the deadliest Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of 2000 to 2005.