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At least 8 dead in Shabbat shooting attack on Jerusalem synagogue
This is a developing story.
(JTA) — A shooting attack on a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov killed at least eight people on Friday, a day after an Israeli raid on a West Bank city ignited vows of retaliation by Palestinian militant groups.
The attack took place Friday evening as worshipers left Shabbat services. A gunman was killed in a shootout with police, Israeli officials said, identifying him as a resident of eastern Jerusalem who was not Israeli.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised it as retaliation for the raid in Jenin, in which at least 10 Palestinians were killed. Israel said the raid was meant to prevent a planned major attack.
Neve Yaakov is one of the neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem Israel built after it captured the area in the 1967 Six-Day War. It was constructed to expand the Jewish presence in the city’s eastern portions, although in recent years Palestinian Jerusalemites have rented apartments there. It is near the separation barrier between Jerusalem’s boundaries and the West Bank and near areas under Palestinian Authority control.
Kan, Israel’s government-run radio network, reported that several other people were wounded in the attack, quoting the first-responder service Magen David Adom. Three were hospitalized, including a 70-year-old woman in critical condition, a 20-year-old man in serious condition and a 14-year-old boy with moderate injuries.
The attack comes just days ahead of visits to the region by top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA chief Bill Burns. Burns’ trip was hastily planned in response to the raid in Jenin and the vows of retaliation, which threaten to ignite simmering tensions.
The Biden Administration is invested in keeping the Middle East quiet while it focuses its energies on assisting Ukraine in repelling Russia’s yearlong war on the country. The United States and Israeli militaries this week carried out a major joint military exercise widely seen as a signal to Iran, Israel’s deadliest enemy, that any major escalation would be met with massive military force.
This is the first major attack since the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was sworn in last month. The government includes ministers who want to loosen the rules of engagement for Israeli police and to expand Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas.
One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees internal security, traveled to the scene of the shooting Friday night. In the past, when he was not a government minister, his visits to the scene of terrorist attacks often drew charges that he was seeking to heighten tension to achieve his political goals.
The shooting is the first major one on an Israeli synagogue since 2014, when five people, including four Jews at prayer and a security guard from Israel’s Druze minority, were killed in a synagogue shooting in the western Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof.
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The post At least 8 dead in Shabbat shooting attack on Jerusalem synagogue appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.