Jerusalem: 13-year-old Palestinian boy shoots two people
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The Palestinian gunman who killed seven people during an attack at a Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem on Friday shot at a young woman as she was giving CPR to her dying husband, witnesses to the scene have claimed. Khairi Alqam, a 21-year-old resident of east Jerusalem, opened fire in the Jewish settlement of Neve Ya’akov yesterday evening before being killed by Isreali police five minutes after fleeing the scene. One witness described the terrifying moment Alqam shot their neighbour before shooting at his wife, who had seen her partner on the floor and ran out to try to save his life.
Shimon Israel, 45, said: “I was having Shabbat dinner, I heard shooting, and first I thought it was Palestinian neighbours shooting [celebratory gunfire] next to us.
“I saw a mess, I saw a guy shooting at the corner of the synagogue, there were already bodies in the streets.
“My neighbour ran out to the guy and he shot him. His wife came running after him and gave CPR. He came and shot at her.”
Mr Israel, an Israeli army veteran who has lived in the settlement for three decades, added: “The shooter aimed his gun up, I crawled on the floor and he shot the window.”
The deadliest terrorist attack in Jerusalem in over a decade, with a 70-year-old woman among the fatally wounded, was quickly followed by a second attack on Saturday.
A 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire in east Jerusalem, wounding two Israelis, officials said.
The shooting in the Palestinian neighbourhood 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.
Video showed police escorting a wounded teen, wearing nothing but underwear, away from the scene 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.
Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said: “He waited to ambush civilians on the holy Sabbath day,” adding that the teenager opened fire on a group of five civilians.
Security footage showed the victims to be observant Jews, wearing skullcaps and tzitzit, or knotted ritual tassels.
Saturday’s events — 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.
The two attacks pose a pivotal test for Israel’s new far-right government. Its firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has presented himself as an enforcer of law and order and grabbed headlines for his promises to take even stronger action against the Palestinians.
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The Israeli army said it had deployed another battalion to the West Bank on Saturday, adding hundreds more troops to a presence already on heightened alert in the occupied territory.
In the Jenin refugee camp, the site of a deadly Israeli military raid on Thursday that fueled the latest escalation, footage showed Palestinians dancing and cheering in celebration of the shooting on Saturday. Palestinian detainees who celebrated in prison after Friday’s attack were placed in solitary confinement, the Israeli prison service said.
Prime Minister Benjamin said he would convene his Security Cabinet later, after the Sabbath, which ends at sundown, to discuss a further response to the attack near the synagogue.
Security forces launched a crackdown in east Jerusalem, fanning out into the neighbourhood of the 21-year-old Palestinian gunman. Police arrested 42 of his family members and neighbours for questioning in the At-Tur neighbourhood.
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