Palestinian, 13, Opens Fire

Attack that wounded two follows slayings of seven outside east Jerusalem synagogue
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 28, 2023 3:10 PM CST
Palestinian, 13, Opens Fire
Israelis light candles Saturday in memory of seven Israelis killed Friday at the site of the shooting attack in east Jerusalem.   (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire in east Jerusalem on Saturday, wounding two Israelis, officials said, a day after another attacker killed seven outside a synagogue in the deadliest attack in the city since 2008. The shooting in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, near the historic Old City, wounded a father and son, ages 47 and 23, paramedics said. Both were fully conscious and in moderate to serious condition in the hospital, the medics added. As police rushed to the scene, two passers-by with licensed weapons shot and overpowered the 13-year-old attacker, police said. Police confiscated his handgun and took the wounded teen to a hospital, the AP reports.

Video showed police escorting a wounded teen, wearing nothing but underwear, away and onto a stretcher, his hands cuffed behind his back. Authorities taped off the street, emergency vehicles and security forces swarmed the area, and helicopters whirled overhead. "He waited to ambush civilians on the holy Sabbath day," an Israeli police spokesman said, adding that the teenager shot at a group of five civilians. Security footage showed the victims to be observant Jews, wearing skullcaps and tzitzit, or knotted ritual tassels.

The violence—on the eve of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's arrival in the region—raised the possibility of even greater conflagration in one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in several years. On Friday, a Palestinian gunman killed at least seven people in a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move not internationally recognized. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security Cabinet to discuss responses to recent Palestinian attacks. At the opening of the meeting, per the AP, he said the government's response will be "strong, swift, and precise."

(More East Jerusalem stories.)

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