Vicious Terrorist Attack Kills Americans at Prayer in Jerusalem Synagogue
Three Americans were brutally and viciously killed in a horrific terrorist attack, in Jerusalem, while at prayer on Tuesday. Aryeh Kupinsky, Kalmen Levin and Moshe Twersky, all recent immigrants with dual citizenship in Israel, were attacked by a pair of Palestinians with knives, axes and pistols. A British citizen was also killed in this latest round of violence to hit Jerusalem. Eight other people, including two Israeli policemen, were wounded, one critically, as the pair charged into the synagogue shouting, “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) and proceeded to create a frenzied scene of carnage.
This attack is the deadliest since 2008 when a Palestinian shot and killed eight people in a religious seminary. Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal, cousins and members of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group, were killed in a shootout with police. They were from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber which has been a focal point of violent protests between Israeli police and Palestinian protestors in recent months. Israeli police converged on the homes of the two, after the terrorist attack, and were met with protestors hurling stones at them. Police responded with riot dispersal tactics. 14 members of the Abu Jamal family have been arrested.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised to deal harshly with the situation. Escalation of violence has been increasing in Jerusalem since the war in Gaza and growing tensions, over religious sites, is threatening to explode in more appalling and ferocious terrorist attacks. The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced the killing even as Netanyahu accused Abbas and Hamas of inciting the violence. Abbas said he condemns the senseless killing of civilians no matter who is doing it.
Hamas praised the terrorist attack saying it is a response to the continued desecration of their mosque, al-Aqsa, which sits on the Temple Mount a site holy to both Jews and Muslims. Non-Muslims may visit the site but are not allowed to pray there in accordance with an agreement dating to the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. Some nationalist Israelis have been going to the site to pray which has caused demonstrations and riots in east Jerusalem.
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, called Prime Minister Netanyahu to express his condolences. In a press conference, with London reporters, Kerry called the attack “an act of pure terror” and demanded a Palestinian response.
“The Palestinian leadership must condemn this 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,” Kerry said.
