This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/world/middleeast/killings-in-jerusalem-synagogue-complex.html

The article has changed 22 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 5 Version 6
Four Killed in Jerusalem Synagogue Complex Four Killed in Jerusalem Synagogue Complex
(about 3 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Two assailants armed with a gun, knives and axes stormed a synagogue complex in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of West Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, killing at least four worshipers during morning prayers, according to the police. The attack was one of the deadliest in the city in several years. JERUSALEM — Two Palestinians armed with a gun, knives and axes stormed a synagogue complex in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of West Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, the Israeli police said, killing four men in the middle of their morning prayers.
Police officers who arrived at the scene shot and killed the attackers. Within two hours, Israeli security forces had stormed Jabel Mukaber, the Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem where the assailants were believed to have lived, spraying tear gas at their family home and into hills of olive trees. The police killed the assailants in a gun battle at the scene that left one officer critically wounded. It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years, and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008. Witnesses and Israeli leaders said the site and the fact that the victims were slain while wearing prayer garments were reminiscent of long-ago pogroms.
A neighbor identified the attackers as Odai and Ghassan Abu Jamal, who were cousins. She said that Ghassan was in his 30s and had two children, and that Odai was in his 20s and unmarried. “To see Jews wearing tefillin and wrapped in the tallit lying in pools of blood, I wondered if I was imagining scenes from the Holocaust,” said Yehuda Meshi Zahav, the veteran leader of a religious emergency-response team, describing the ritual straps and prayer shawls worn by the worshipers. “It was a massacre of Jews at prayer.”
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israel police, said an investigation was underway to see whether the suspects were “affiliated with any terrorist organization like Hamas or Islamic Jihad.” Ynet, an Israeli news site, said the two were related to one of more than 1,000 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons during a 2011 exchange for an Israeli soldier who was captured five years earlier by Hamas. The 7 a.m. attack on a synagogue complex that is at the heart of community life in the Har Nof neighborhood shattered Israelis’ sense of security and further strained relations with Palestinians at a time of soaring tension and violence. Six people, including a baby, a soldier and a border police officer, have been killed in a spate of vehicular and knife attacks fueled in large part by a dispute over a holy site in the Old City known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the attack “the direct result of the incitement” led by Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction, and by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and set a security consultation for noon. “We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were eliminated by despicable murderers,” he said in a statement. The four victims were all rabbis, one born in England and three in the United States, including Moshe Twersky, 59, part of a celebrated Hasidic dynasty.
Mr. Abbas condemned “the killing of civilians from any side” and “the whole cycle of violence,” according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. It was his first official condemnation of violence during the recent spate of deadly attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank. Relatives identified the attackers as two cousins, Odai Abed Abu Jamal, 22, and Ghassan Muhammad Abu Jamal, 32. They were described as being motivated by what they saw as threats to the revered plateau that contains Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly asserted that he will not alter the status quo at the site, where non-Muslims can visit but not openly pray, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has called on his people to protect the area and has warned of a “holy war” if it is “contaminated” by Jews.
At least a dozen others at the synagogue were wounded, according to the director of Magen David Adom, the Israeli ambulance service. Two, including a police officer, were in critical condition and two others were in serious condition at Hadassah Hospital, a spokeswoman said. “They carried out this operation because of the fire in their hearts — they were under pressures, pressures, pressures and in one ripe moment, the explosion took place,” said a relative who gave his name as Abu Salah, holding photographs of the men. “I say in full mouth, it is a religious war which Netanyahu has started,” he added. “It will end the way we like.”
The target of the attack was Kehilat Bnei Torah, a complex that houses several synagogues on a quiet street in the Har Nof neighborhood. Mr. Netanyahu called Tuesday’s attack “the direct result of the incitement” led by Mr. Abbas and Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction, and vowed to “respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were eliminated by despicable murderers.”
“This is a central synagogue in the neighborhood,” Aryeh Deri, a legislator from the Shas party who lives in Har Nof, told Israel Radio. “Jews who came to pray are lying on the synagogue floor in their tefillin and tallit,” he added, referring to ritual phylacteries and prayer shawls. Secretary of State John Kerry of the United States called the attack “a pure result of incitement.”
The attack came at a time of heightened tensions in Jerusalem fueled in large part by a dispute over a sensitive holy site in the Old City known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. “The Palestinian leadership must condemn this,” Mr. Kerry said in London, after speaking by telephone to Mr. Netanyahu, “and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement that comes from their language, from other people’s language, and exhibit the kind of leadership that is necessary to put this region on a different path.”
In recent weeks, Palestinian individuals have carried out several vehicular assaults and stabbings against Israelis in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Tel Aviv, killing three civilians, a soldier and a border police officer. In another episode, a Palestinian gunman from East Jerusalem attempted to assassinate a prominent Jewish activist who has pushed for more Jewish access and demanded that Jews be allowed to pray at the holy site. The gunman was later killed in a shootout with the police; the Jewish activist, Yehuda Glick, survived. Mr. Abbas responded to Mr. Kerry’s demand, offering his first denouncement of any Palestinian attack during the recent escalation.
Tensions rose again in the city on Monday after a Palestinian driver for an Israeli bus company was found hanged in his bus. The driver’s family said that he had been the victim of a lynching by Jewish extremists, setting off riots in the driver’s neighborhood, though the police said an autopsy, which was also attended by an expert of the family’s choice, found that there had been no foul play and ruled the death a suicide. “We condemn the killing of civilians from any side,” he said in a statement published by Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. “We condemn the killings of worshipers at the synagogue in Jerusalem and condemn acts of violence no matter their source.”
Officials at Israel’s Health Ministry and police officers said that evidence from the scene and from the autopsy confirmed the death was a suicide, but declined to describe the evidence. Ma’an, an independent Palestinian news agency, said the Palestinian doctor who had attended the autopsy had seen signs of a possible homicide, including where the blood settled after death. But other Palestinian leaders praised the attack as a response to what they see as a threat to the holy site, and to the recent death of a Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem. Relatives and friends of the driver, Yousef al-Ramouni, who was found hanged in his bus Sunday night, insisted he had been lynched by Jews, though the Israeli police said an autopsy on Monday ruled that his death was a suicide.
Friends of the dead driver, Yousef al-Ramouni, and other drivers disputed the finding of suicide, saying that they had seen bruises on his body that suggested he had been attacked. They described the driver as a happy father of two who had recently asked to be given a new bus route after being abused by Jewish riders. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s central committee, said on Al Jazeera early Tuesday that the attack on the synagogue complex was “a normal reaction to the Israeli oppression.”
Press officers for Hamas quickly praised the attack Tuesday as justifiable revenge for the driver’s death. Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, wrote in a Facebook post: “The new operation is heroic and a natural reaction to Zionist criminality against our people and our holy places. We have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means.”
“The new operation is heroic and a natural reaction to Zionist criminality against our people and our holy places,” a Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri, wrote in a Facebook post. “We have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine took credit for the attack, though Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said the authorities were still investigating whether the assailants were affiliated with any group.
Another Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, called for “revenge acts to continue in Jerusalem.” “We’re also looking to see why they targeted this synagogue, were they familiar with this neighborhood,” Mr. Rosenfeld told reporters in a conference call, though he declined to confirm news reports that one of the suspects worked in a nearby grocery store. “They came in from the local areas, took advantage of that they had work purposes to roam freely around Jerusalem.”
Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in London on Tuesday, denounced the attack as a “pure act of terror” and called on Palestinian leaders to condemn it. Within two hours of the attack, scores of Israeli security forces had stormed Jabel Mukaber, the Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem where the suspects lived, spraying tear gas at their family home and into hills of olive trees.
“I call on the Palestinian leadership at every single level to condemn this in the most powerful terms,” Mr. Kerry said before meeting with his British counterpart. Relatives said the younger assailant’s parents, three sisters and a brother were arrested, along with the wife, mother and five brothers of the older attacker, who had three children, ages 6, 5 and 3.
Mr. Kerry said that he had discussed the attack with Mr. Netanyahu by phone Tuesday morning, and that it was particularly egregious because it followed a recent meeting in Amman, Jordan, in which the Israeli leader had sought to ease tensions by restoring access to a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. “I salute Odai and Ghassan for this heroic operation,” said a cousin, Huda Abu Jamal, 46. “Every Palestinian should strike. Our conditions are too bad. These men have no jobs. Al Aqsa is in danger. The settlers brutally hanged Yousef. We raise our heads high.”
Mr. Kerry called Mr. Abbas from London to express support for his statement condemning the attacks and to urge him to do everything possible to de-escalate tension. He agreed to stay in close touch with both leaders. Witnesses at the synagogue complex where the assault took place said the attackers were wearing jeans and T-shirts, and no masks, and shouted “God is great” in Arabic as they burst inside.
Mr. Abbas, in his statement on Wafa, said he remains “committed to the understandings” reached in Amman. He also reiterated his call to “stop the incitement against Aqsa,” referring to the holy site, and to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. In addition to Rabbi Twersky — a son of Isadore Twersky, a Harvard scholar known as the Tolner Rebbe of Boston who died in 1997, and a grandson of Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, the Orthodox philosopher and teacher who died in 1993 — those killed, according to the police and local news organizations, were Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, a British-born father of six; Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, 43; and Rabbi Kalman Levine, 55. Like Rabbi Twersky, Rabbi Kopinsky and Rabbi Levine, were both American immigrants to Israel.
In Gaza, some people celebrated by shooting in the air, and praise for God and the so-called martyrs poured from mosque loudspeakers. “God is great,” the call said. “We praise God for the victory and dignity in Jerusalem and we say the martyrs are now in paradise.” At least a dozen worshipers were injured, several of them seriously, in the attack on Kehilat Bnei Torah, a complex that houses several prayer groups and a large community hall on a quiet street in Har Nof. Several residents said the building was a center of life for Jews of Eastern European descent, with the hall serving as a popular spot for weddings, film screenings and speeches.
Right-wing Israeli politicians blamed Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority for the attack. They say that Mr. Abbas has been fomenting violence by accusing Israel of trying to change the status quo at the holy site, at which non-Muslims are allowed to visit only during certain hours and are not to pray openly. Yossef Pasternak, who was praying at the synagogue, told Israel Radio he had heard gunshots at the height of the morning service.
Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he does not intend to change the rules, but members of his Likud Party and ministers in his government are among those who have supported legislation calling for increased Jewish access and prayer and who have visited the site, fueling tensions. “I turn around and I see a man with a pistol who starts shooting point blank at people next to him,” Mr. Pasternak said. “Immediately after, someone enters with a knife, a butcher-type knife, and also goes on a rampage in all directions.” Mr. Pasternak said he had hidden under a chair.
“The hands that held the axes are of the terrorists but the voice is the voice of Abu Mazen,” declared Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, using an alternate name for Mr. Abbas. “Whoever calls on Muslims to defend the mosque in Al Aqsa using all the means against Jews bears direct responsibility for the horrific pogrom at the synagogue in Har Nof and all the attacks and deadly riots in Jerusalem.” Rabbi Shmuel Pinchas said his 13-year-old grandson had done the same. “He crouched under a chair, blood spattered on him from the person who sat in front of him, he fainted,” Rabbi Pinchas said. “People were in the middle of prayer and people could not respond. There is nowhere to hide as the synagogue is closed on all sides.”
In a statement, Naftali Bennett, the economy minister and head of the Jewish Home party, called Mr. Abbas “one of the greatest terrorists the Palestinian people sprouted” and said he “bears direct responsibility for Jewish blood spilled in tallit and tefillin.” Joyce Morel, a doctor who lives in Har Nof, said she had treated a man at the scene who was hit in the back with an ax and also shot, and the police officer, who was shot in the head. Another man had slipped on blood and fallen down a flight of stairs, breaking his leg.
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, said Mr. Abbas had “deliberately turned the conflict into a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims.” “Everybody in the neighborhood is in a state of shock,” Dr. Morel said. “My son-in-law prays there regularly, his father prays there, my grandchildren are there frequently, my husband studies across the street from there every single day. It’s really a center for the community.”
“The international community should condemn Abbas’s anti-Semitic statements, which lead to terrible massacres as happened this morning,” he said in a statement, “and make it clear that those who act in this way cannot be seen as a legitimate political figure.” Avi Nefoussi, a volunteer medic who lives a few blocks from the synagogue, said he arrived before the shooting stopped. He said he had helped evacuate some of the injured on stretchers, “then, unfortunately, we saw some bodies lying on the floor.”
Witnesses told Israel Radio that they heard 15 to 20 gunshots as police officers battled the attackers around 7 a.m., while people at morning prayers tried to take cover. One face looked familiar. It was a man in his 40s who Mr. Nefoussi “knew personally, very well,” though he declined to identify him pending notification of his family.
“He crouched under a chair, blood spattered on him from the person who sat in front of him, he fainted,” Rabbi Shmuel Pinchas said of his 13-year-old grandson, who prays at the synagogue daily. “People were in the middle of prayer and people could not respond. There is nowhere to hide as the synagogue is closed on all sides.” The man, like the others, was wearing the traditional fringed tallit used in prayer, as a wedding canopy, and sometimes as a funeral shroud. Mr. Nefoussi said he had covered the body with it before leaving.
Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest on Israeli civilians in more than three years, and reminiscent of the 2008 killing of eight students at Mercaz Harav, a prominent yeshiva in the heart of Jerusalem. In 2011, eight Israelis were killed and more than 30 wounded in attacks on buses near the southern resort city of Eilat, and five members of the Fogel family were stabbed to death inside their home in the West Bank settlement Itamar.
Yehuda Meshi Zahav, the founder of Zaka, an ultra-Orthodox disaster-response group, said the setting made the attack all the more painful.
“I’ve seen incidents with many more killed,” he told Israel Radio, “but to see this difficult scene of Jews wrapped in their tallit, and tefillin on the arms and heads, wallowing in huge puddles of blood inside a synagogue with dozens of holy books on the floor — these are scenes we only saw during the Holocaust.”