JERUSALEM (USA Today) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “respond harshly” after five people — three of them U.S.-born rabbis — were killed in a synagogue Tuesday by two Palestinians wielding meat cleavers, an ax and a gun.
The incident was the latest violent event in the tense city where relations between Arabs and Jews have been deteriorating for weeks over a contested shrine holy to both Jews and Muslims.
Netanyahu immediately ordered the demolition of the attackers’ homes, as well as homes of Palestinians who carried out several recent attacks.
Four of the dead were rabbis and one was a police officer who died of his wounds hours after the attack. Three of the rabbis were born in the United States, and the fourth was born in England, although all held dual Israeli citizenship.