The Israeli authorities described the tragic incident as an act of terrorism.
Photo: REUTERS
On Friday night in Jerusalem, near the synagogue, there was shooting – a criminal opened fire on people from a car. As a result of the attack, seven people died and three were injured.
Having fired two cartridges from a Browning pistol, the attacker decided to escape, but the policemen who arrived at the scene of the tragedy shot the criminal during the chase; doctors pronounced the man dead.
The Israeli authorities described the tragic incident as an act of terrorism.
According to Israeli law enforcement officers, the shooting was carried out by a 21-year-old refugee camp resident, Shufat Alkam Khairi. According to the preliminary investigation, the young man had not previously attracted the attention of the police and did not belong to extremist groups, and he carried out the attack alone, although the possible presence of accomplices is not denied. It is likely that with his act, Khairi decided to avenge his grandfather, who was also called Alkam: in the late 1990s, Alkam Khairi Sr., who was working on a construction site in Jerusalem, was stabbed to death by a jew.
As a result of the attack, four men and one woman died at the scene of the shooting, two more (an elderly woman and a young man in his 30s) died from their injuries in the hospital. Three victims (a man, a 60-year-old woman, and a teenager) were hospitalized in moderate to serious condition.
Large police forces and government officials arrived at the scene, later joined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The head of the country’s Defense Ministry, who was in the United States on an official visit, announced an urgent return to his homeland in connection with the terrorist attack.
