A 7am attack on Tuesday on a Jerusalem synagogue has heightened tensions in the city. The attack, which claimed the lives of four Israeli worshippers, took place as they began morning prayers. Three of the victims held dual US-Israeli citizenship and the fourth was a British-Israeli national, police said.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack but also demanded “an end to ongoing incursions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, provocative acts by Israeli settlers and incitement by some Israeli ministers”. “We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were met by reprehensible murderers,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has claimed responsibility for the attack. Within two hours of the attack scores of Israeli security forces had stormed Jabel Mukaber, the neighborhood of East Jerusalem where the assailants are thought to live, spraying tear gas at their family home and into groves of olive trees. Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said he was seeking a partial easing of gun controls so that military officers and security guards could carry weapons while off-duty. Violence in Jerusalem, areas of Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories has surged in the past month, fueled in part by Israeli incursions at Al-Aqsa. Abbas has said Muslims have a right to defend their sacred places if attacked.
