The victims: Rabbis Moshe Twersky, 59, Aryeh Kupinsky, 43, Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, and Kalman Levine, 55. PM Netanyahu: "This is the direct result of the incitement being led by Hamas and Abu Mazen."
At 7: 00 on Tuesday morning, 18 November 2014, two terrorists entered the Kehillat Bnei Torah building on Harav Shimon Agassi Street in the ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighborhood in Jerusalem, which includes a synagogue and yeshiva, wielding a gun and butcher knives. They began attacking worshipers, stabbing them before opening fire. About 30 worshipers were in the midst of the morning prayers, wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries.
Police who arrived at the scene shortly after the attack began shot and killed the two terrorists.
Police confirm that four people were killed in the terror attack and eight wounded, three seriously and one critically. Two of the wounded are policemen, one in critical condition as doctors fight for his life.
The victims has been identified as:
Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, head of the Torat Moshe Yeshiva in Jerusalem, elder son of Rabbi Isadore Twersky of Boston, and a grandson of Modern Orthodox luminary Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The three other victims are Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky, 43, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, and Rabbi Kalman Ze'ev Levine, 55, all residents of the same street in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem.
We, the embassy of Israel in Tokyo, offer our deepest condolences to the victims of terror attack and their families.
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Recent Palestinian terrorist attacks:
>10 November: A 26-year-old Israeli woman died in the West Bank after being run over and stabbed.
>10 November: An off-duty IDF soldier was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv.
>5 November: An Israeli police officer was murdered and 14 injured when a Palestinian terrorist deliberately rammed his car into pedestrians near a Jerusalem light-rail station and then attacked them with a metal bar.
>29 October: Rabbi Yehuda Glick was shot multiple times and critically injured by a Palestinian terrorist in central Jerusalem.
>22 October: A three-month-old baby girl and a young woman from Ecuador were murdered, deliberately run over by a Palestinian driver at a light-rail train station in Jerusalem. Seven others were wounded.
PM's Statement to the Media Following Jerusalem Synagogue Attack
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening (Tuesday, 18 November), at his Jerusalem office, issued the following statement to the media:
We send our condolences to their families. We send our best wishes for a recovery to the wounded and to the heroic policemen whose action prevented a greater disaster. The human animals who perpetrated this slaughter were full of hatred and incitement, deep hatred and terrible incitement against the Jewish People and its state. Hamas, the Islamic Movement and the Palestinian Authority are disseminating countless lies and falsehoods against the State of Israel. They are saying that the Jews are contaminating the Temple Mount. They are saying that we are planning to destroy the Holy Places, that we intend to change the order of prayer there – this is all lies.
These lies have already claimed a very heavy price. They took the life of a three-month-old baby, Chaya Zissel Braun, who had been taken for her first visit to the Western Wall, along with her parents, who wanted to thank G-d for giving them a baby. They also claimed the lives of Karen Jemima Mosquera, Jidan Assad, Aharon Badani, Sgt. Almog Shilony and Dalia Lemkus. All of them were pure souls. All of them were victims of this mendacious incitement. Today they are joined by additional victims of the same wild blood libel of the kind that is etched in the memory of our people.
Yesterday a bus driver from eastern Jerusalem committed suicide. He committed suicide. The findings of the pathology report have been published and they prove this unequivocally. He committed suicide. But this has not prevented those same elements from inciting and disseminating the blood libel to the effect that he was murdered by Jews. This incitement contributed its part to the shocking slaughter that was perpetrated this morning in a holy place during prayers. But what is outrageous is not only the brutality of the murder but the shouts of joy in Gaza, in Bethlehem and in other places. They are giving out candies, waving axes in the air and praising the shahidim [martyrs]. True, this time Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] condemned the slaughter and it is good that he did. I remember that he also condemned the murder of the three youths but it is not enough because in the same sentence in which he condemned today's slaughter, he linked it to imaginary actions – which have no basis in reality – that Israel is purportedly planning to carry out on the Temple Mount. There is daily, even hourly, incitement on the streets of the Palestinian Authority. There, not only do the most reprehensible murderers become the heroes of Palestinian culture, but there is unending, constant incitement against the very existence of the State of Israel, against the security of Israel's citizens, in schools, the media, mosques, everywhere, and this is the root of the conflict: The refusal to recognize – and educate for – the existence of the state of the Jews.
Last week I traveled to Jordan and held a very important meeting in Amman with King Abdullah and US Secretary of State John Kerry. Together, we called to calm the situation and for the restoration of quiet. To my regret, the answer that we received from the Palestinian Authority was to declare a day of rage in Jerusalem. And today we all saw the result. The world sees this slaughter but, to our regret, does not demand that the Palestinians stop the wild incitement against Israel that is the root of the conflict. I call on all heads of state in the civilized world – I want to see outrage. I want to see condemnation, a deep and uncompromising condemnation of these murders of Israelis, of Jews. Do not discriminate between blood and blood. When there are other acts of murder you express the same outrage and condemn them. But when I see a three-month-old baby being murdered, when I see these Jews at prayer in a synagogue, our holy place, just as a church is holy for Christians and a mosque is holy for Muslims, I expect to at least hear the same condemnation, in an uncompromising and unreserved tone. To my regret, there are those who currently insist on giving the Palestinians a prize in the form of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that does not recognize the state of the Jews. We will not tolerate this reality; we will fight terrorism and we will defeat it. We will restore law, order and security to the streets of Jerusalem.
This evening I ordered the demolition of the homes of the terrorists who perpetrated the massacre and the hastening of the demolition of the homes of the terrorists who perpetrated the earlier attacks. I ordered stepped-up enforcement against – and stiffer punishments for – those engaged in incitement, as well as the banning of organizations engaged in incitement, and increased security on the streets of Jerusalem. Alongside offensive actions there are also defensive actions.
Citizens of Israel, I call on you to show maximum alert and to respect the law. As a state, we will settle accounts with all of the terrorists and those who dispatched them. We have already proven that we do this, but let nobody take the law into his hands, even if tempers flare and blood boils. We are in a lengthy war against abhorrent terrorism which did not start today. Terrorism has followed us through all the years of the Zionist enterprise. We have always withstood it and we will do so this time as well.
There are those who would like to uproot us from our land and from our capital. They will not achieve their aim. We are in a battle for Jerusalem, our eternal capital. In this battle we must be united; this is the order of the day. We have always known to unite in times of trial. We must put aside all of the little differences and unite around one major issue – defending Jerusalem, defending the security of Israel's citizens. I think that this is what the citizens of Israel expect of us at this time – to stand together as one, unified and united. What is called for at this time is national unity."