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Up to six stabbed at Gay Pride march in Jerusalem Up to six men stabbed at gay pride march in Jerusalem
(34 minutes later)
As many as six participants in the Jerusalem Gay Pride march have been stabbed by an assailant described by police as a suspected ultra-Orthodox Jewish man. As many as six participants in the Jerusalem gay pride march have been stabbed by an assailant described by police as a suspected ultra-Orthodox Jewish man.
Israeli media reports said paramedics were treating two people in a serious condition. The Magen David Adom, the local equivalent of the Red Cross, said two of the casualties were in serious condition.
The march has long been a focus of tension between Israel’s predominantly secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority, who object to public displays of homosexuality. Israeli media said the suspect in the stabbing had recently been released from prison after having been convicted of stabbing three people during the parade 10 years ago.
Ahead of the march, a representative of the far-right Lehava group told the Jerusalem Post in an interview that it considered homosexuality the same as “robbing a bank” and believed it was destroying the Jewish nation. A police spokeswoman, Luba Samri, told Reuters that a suspected ultra-Orthodox Jewish man had carried out the attack.
More details soon ... An eyewitness, Zoe Shoshei, 18, told the Guardian that she was speaking to a man when the suspect came up behind them, pushed her to the ground and attacked with what she described as a “very big knife”.
He stabbed the man in the back “as if to say ‘I hate you’”, she said. Shoshei said the man, who she described as between 30 and 35, was running into the crowd and stabbing for what felt like minutes before police brought him to the ground. The victims were all male, she said.
The march has long been a focus of tension between Israel’s predominantly secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority, who object to homosexuality.
Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade is smaller and more restrained than the annual gay pride march in Tel Aviv, which was attended by some 100,000 revellers last month.
Before the march, a representative of the far-right Lehava group told the Jerusalem Post in an interview that it considered homosexuality the same as “robbing a bank” and believed it was destroying the Jewish nation.
Israel is widely seen as having liberal gay rights policies, despite the ultra-Orthodox hostility towards homosexuals, particularly men.
The Jewish state repealed a ban on consensual same-sex sexual acts in 1988.