Eight Israelis killed leaving synagogue in East Jerusalem

Eight Israelis have been shot and killed as they left a synagogue in East Jerusalem, in the latest episode of spiralling violence across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories over the past two days.

A gunman in a car waited on Friday night until Shabbat prayers ended at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, a neighbourhood of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem, before opening fire on people as they left the building, a preliminary Israeli police probe said. The attack came on International Holocaust Remembrance day.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said medics declared five people dead at the scene and said that three more died while being treated in hospital. At least nine more victims are understood to be in critical condition.

Television footage showed bodies strewn around the street, while police and ambulance sirens blared across Jerusalem late into the night.

The attacker was shot and killed by officers while trying to flee, police said. Police and Hebrew and Arabic media reports said he was an East Jerusalem Palestinian. He was identified by Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster, as a 21-year-old who did not have a security record.

The raid on Thursday morning targeted Islamic Jihad militants in the Jenin refugee camp, in the north of the Palestinian territory, triggering tit-for-tat rocket fire between the Gaza Strip and Israel in the early hours of Friday and sparking fears of a wider escalation in the decades-long conflict.

The newly re-elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with the national security minister, rightwing extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, arrived at the scene late on Friday, where they were greeted with a mixture of cheers and boos.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, although a spokesperson for Hamas, the armed Palestinian movement in control of the Gaza Strip, said that the attack was connected to the Jenin raid.

Last year was the bloodiest in Israel and the Palestinian territories since 2004, with about 250 Palestinians in the West Bank and 30 Israelis killed. Another 49 Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip in a three-day surprise Israeli bombing campaign in August.

So far this month, 31 Palestinians have been killed.

Late on Friday unconfirmed reports emerged that an Israeli settler in the West Bank had shot and injured four Palestinians in the town of Beita, near Nablus. One person was reported to be in critical condition.