Source: huffingtonpost.com
This frame grab from an APTN video shows the scene in Jersualem where two Palestinians stormed a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, attacking worshippers praying inside with knives, axes and guns, and killing four. Police killed the attackers in a shootout. (AP Photo/APTN)
JERUSALEM, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Two Palestinians armed with a meat cleaver and a gun killed four people in a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday before being shot dead by police, the deadliest such incident in six years in the holy city amid a surge in religious conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to respond with a “heavy hand,” and again accused Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence in Jerusalem.
Abbas condemned the attack, which comes after a month of unrest fueled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest shrine.
A worshipper at the morning service in the Kehillat Bnei Torah synagogue in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of West Jerusalem said about 25 people were praying when shooting broke out.
“I looked up and saw someone shooting people at point-blank range. Then someone came in with what looked like a butcher’s knife and he went wild,” the witness, Yosef Posternak, told Israel Radio.
Photos distributed by Israeli authorities showed a man in a Jewish prayer shawl lying dead, a bloodied butcher’s cleaver on the floor, several overturned prayer tables and prayer books covered in blood.
“We are viewing this as a terrorist attack,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, who confirmed the four dead and that the two assailants, both from predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, had been shot dead by police.
Israel’s ambulance service said at least eight people were seriously wounded.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said it carried out the attack.
“We declare full responsibility of the PFLP for the execution of this heroic operation conducted by our heroes this morning in Jerusalem,” said Hani Thawbta, a PFLP leader in Gaza.
Police identified one of the dead as Rabbi Moshe Twersky, who taught at a Jerusalem seminary. Twersky was from a Hassidic rabbinical dynasty and a grandson of Joseph Soloveitchik, a renowned Boston rabbi who died in 1993.
In a statement, Abbas said: “The presidency condemns the attack on Jewish worshippers in one of their places of prayer in West Jerusalem and condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry described the …READ MORE @ huffingtonpost.com
Categories: Israel
Islam does not allow Muslims to attack any place of worship. Islam emphasizes that Muslims have responsibility to protect all places of worship, of every faith. Muslims are to protect the synagogues, churches, temples and mosques.
It is surprising how the Muslim Clerics have reversed the teaching of Islam, specially about killing innocent people. The religion which was meant for peace has been turned into a religion of terror.
Muslims have not learnt any lesson from the mistakes of Adolf Hitler. The Muslim terrorists are only pursuing the path of nuisance value, i.e. disturbing the peace of the world community.