The body of a Jewish worshipper is seen at the scene of an attack at a Jerusalem synagogue
Last Tuesday, headlines from the RT News reported, “four people died from a Palestinian attack in Synagogue, Jerusalem”. Later, sorrowful news released on Wednesday that a police officer has died due to severe injuries resulting from the gun battle encounter that had happened. REUTERS/Kobi Gideon/

Four worshippers were killed in a violent attack in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Police shot dead the two Palestinians responsible for the attack.

The Palestinians were armed with a gun and a meat cleaver when they attacked the worshippers in in the Kehillat Bnei Torah synagogue in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jewish West Jerusalem. This is considered to be the most violent attack in the holy city in the last six years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for encouraging violence as he vowed to respond with a "heavy hand." Abbas, on the other hand, condemned the attack which had killed a British-Israeli man and three American-Israeli men. Reuters quoted witness Yosef Posternak who told Israel Radio that there were around 25 people praying when the attack was launched. He said that someone was shooting people at point-blank range. The person had apparently gone wild with a "butcher's knife," he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the "terrorist attack" in a statement. He said that the attack on the synagogue worshippers had killed innocent people including American citizens identified as Mosheh Twersky, Cary William Levine and Aryeh Kupinsky. Obama noted that a large number of people had become victims of the recent violence between Palestine and Israel. He called it a "difficult time" as he asked both Israelis and Palestinians to work together to lower tensions.

Veteran leader Yehuda Meshi Zahav compared the attack with the Holocaust. He called it a "massacre of Jews at prayer." "To see Jews wearing tefillin and wrapped in the tallit lying in pools of blood, I wondered if I was imagining scenes from the Holocaust," he said. Israeli leaders and witnesses were particularly perturbed by the way the violent attack had an apparent religious colour to it. The worshippers were killed while they were wearing ritual garments as blood spilled on prayer books, New York Times reported.

The Palestinian president earlier signed a unity agreement with Hamas which had been violently fighting against Israel over the years due to Israel's alleged occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. A dispute over the holiest shrine in Jerusalem sparked violence in the region recently. Abbas earlier said that Muslims had a right to defend sacred places in case there was an attack.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au