Escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict | Bloody attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem

A gunman opened fire near a synagogue in East Jerusalem on Friday evening, killing seven and injuring three after a day that was punctuated by multiple warnings about the risk of conflagration in the city. israelo-Palestinian conflict.

The attack, one of the deadliest to occur in Israel in years, was blamed by law enforcement on a 21-year-old Palestinian man who was killed as he tried to flee.

Emergency services said five people died at the scene and two others in hospital.

A barber living near the synagogue, Shalom Borohov, told Agence France-Presse that the “terrorist” opened fire from his vehicle on people leaving the synagogue and continued to shoot at those approaching to help the victims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, recently returned to power, visited the scene of the tragedy in the evening. He indicated that “immediate measures” had been adopted without giving more details and asked the population not to seek justice for themselves.

The attack on the synagogue came the day after a raid by Israeli forces on a refugee camp in Jenin, in the West Bank, which left nine people dead and led to threats of revenge from Palestinian armed groups.

The operation, according to Tel Aviv, was directed against Islamic Jihad militants who were planning attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.

A spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, welcomed Friday’s attack, noting that it was a “natural reaction” to the clash that occurred the day before in Jenin.

During the night of Thursday to Friday, rockets were fired from the landlocked territory, in protest, without causing any casualties.

The Israeli government retaliated by bombing a few Hamas-linked targets, again without causing any casualties.

The United States said it was “deeply concerned” during the day “by the ongoing escalation of violence” and, like France, had asked “the parties involved to seek urgently” to defuse the crisis.

President Joe Biden called Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday evening to assure him of US support after the “atrocious terrorist attack” which he called an “attack on the civilized world”, according to a House statement. White.

explosive situation

Jake Walles, a Middle East specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Friday he expected Israeli forces to target the Gaza Strip in the short term in return for claims made by Hamas.

Thomas Juneau, of the University of Ottawa, believes that Mr. Netanyahu will want to be firm against the Palestinian armed groups.

All the more so, he says, since he has far-right elected officials in his ranks who advocate a hard line in the face of Palestinian demands and any form of violence that may result from it.

The government’s approach is a major challenge for the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, who announced Friday his decision to no longer collaborate with Israeli security forces in the West Bank to underline its indignation at the “massacre” of Jenin.

Mr. Juneau notes that the Palestinian organization, which does not control the Gaza Strip, is plagued by corruption and has little credibility with the Palestinian population under its leadership, which increases the appeal of radical groups like Islamic Jihad.

Mr. Walles notes that the United States has tended to neglect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to focus on China and the Ukrainian conflict, encouraging slippages.

The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was already expected in the region before the attack. He is due to travel to Jerusalem on Monday and to Ramallah, in the West Bank, on Tuesday.

Exit hard to find

He will have a lot to do to convince the two camps to calm things down, notes Mr. Walles, who expects that the presence of the American representative may lead the Israeli authorities to temper their response to the attack in the short term.

Sami Aoun, another Middle East specialist attached to the University of Sherbrooke, notes that Benyamin Netanyahu cannot afford to react with reserve to Palestinian attacks without arousing the ire of his coalition partners.

However, by adopting a response that is too close to their imperatives, he risks compromising the diplomatic rapprochements made during his previous stint in government with many Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates.

Thomas Juneau, who returns from the region, notes that there is a lot of “discomfort” in these countries with the situation of the Palestinian population and the lack of any progress in the search for a lasting solution to the conflict. Israeli-Palestinian.

Mr. Walles sees no hope of unblocking the substantive issues in the current context.

“Things are going to get worse before they can get better,” he warned Friday in an interview with The Pressa few hours before the attack.

With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press