Seven people were killed and ten wounded on Friday night in Jerusalem, Israel, by a terrorist gunman as they left Sabbath evening prayers. Friday also marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
At least eight people were killed and another 10 injured in a terror attack at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem on Friday evening.
The terrorist, who opened fire at people leaving the synagogue after Friday night prayers, was killed by security forces after attempting to escape in a car.
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Celebrations, including fireworks and guns being shot in the air, were witnessed in Jenin and other Arab towns throughout Israel in reaction to the incident.
The attack came after an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid on a terror cell in Jenin earlier this week in which nine Palestinians were killed, including several terrorists, after Palestinian gunmen opened fire and Israeli soldiers returned fire.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day was adopted in recent years on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. Israel and Jewish communities worldwide have traditionally commemorated the Holocaust — and the resistance fighters who took up arms against the Nazis — later in the year, during the Jewish month of Nisan, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke about the Biden administration’s actions against antisemitism in her briefing to reporters Friday, but did not say anything at the outset about the terror attack.
Asked later in the briefing about the attack, she urged “de-escalation” and what she called a cycle of violence, but she did not specifically condemn the attack on civilian worshippers exiting the synagogue in Jerusalem.
Reporters, too, tended to avoid the attack, and asked Jean-Pierre whether the administration would do more to advance the two-state solution to the conflict, which would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Update: The number of those killed in the attack has been revised downward from eight to seven.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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