Jerusalem hit by second shooting after synagogue attack leaves 7 dead

Jerusalem was rocked on Saturday morning by the second shooting in less than 24 hours, following two days of spiralling violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Israeli police said that a 13-year-old resident of East Jerusalem had shot a father and a son near the historic Old City, and that he had then been “neutralised and injured”. Israel’s emergency service said that the two victims had been hospitalised with upper body wounds.

The shooting in the Silwan neighbourhood came just hours after a Palestinian gunman shot dead seven Israelis and injured three more near a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday, in the deadliest shooting in the holy city since 2008.

The twin shootings — which followed the deadliest Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank for years and an exchange of fire between Israel’s air force and militants in Gaza — have heightened fears that the simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict could escalate into a broader confrontation.

The eruption of violence is the first big test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline new government, widely seen as the most rightwing in Israel’s history, which took office in December with ultranationalists in key security posts pledging to bolster security and take a tougher stance against the Palestinians.

Police said that the first shooting, which took place on Holocaust Memorial day as worshippers were leaving a synagogue in the Jewish settlement of Neve Ya’akov, was carried out by a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem, and that their preliminary assessment was that he had acted alone.

On Saturday, police detained 42 people in connection with the shooting, including members of the gunman’s family, and said they were examining whether they had any connection with or prior knowledge of the attack. They added that security in the city would be stepped up.

At a visit to the scene of the Neve Ya’akov shooting on Friday night Netanyahu described the attack as “one of the most severe we have known in years”, and said that the security cabinet would meet on Saturday.

“Our hearts are with the families,” he said. “We must act with determination and composure. I call on people not to take the law into their own hands.”

Yair Lapid, the former prime minister who heads the largest opposition party Yesh Atid, said that the attack was “horrific and heartbreaking”.

“We cannot allow terrorism to raise its head and must respond with firm hand against the terrorists and those who send them,” he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack, although Palestinian militant groups praised the first. Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said that it was a “natural response to the occupation’s criminal actions”.

Israeli-Palestinians tensions have been running high for months, with 190 Palestinians and 31 Israelis killed last year amid near-nightly clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank, and 56-hour conflict between Israel and militants in Gaza last August.

But in the last week they have escalated dramatically. On Thursday, Israeli commandos killed nine Palestinians during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp that targeted militants from Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the deadliest raid on the camp for two decades.

In response, Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza fired rockets at Israel on Thursday night, prompting Israel to bomb targets in the coastal enclave, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since the Hamas militant group took power in 2007. No casualties were reported on either side.

In a separate incident on Friday night, three Palestinians were hospitalised after being shot by an Israeli settler near Nablus in the north of the West Bank, according to Palestinian media.

The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday night that it was cancelling security co-operation with Israel in response to the raid on Jenin, prompting US officials to urge them to reverse the decision.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is due to travel to Israel and the West Bank next week as part of a pre-planned visit to the region. CIA chief William Burns was also visiting on Friday.

A spokesperson for UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said he condemned Friday’s shooting and was “deeply worried” about the escalating violence. “This is the moment to exercise utmost restraint,” the spokesperson said.