A minor melee on Friday outside the popular Jaffa Gate (described here and here), the main entrance to the Old City, killed one and wounded ten more. I always say that Jerusalem is a living laboratory of coexistence. Just the mix of poeple caught up in the ricochet of gunfire illustrates that.
A security guard shot and killed an Arab attacker in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday after the man shot and moderately wounded another security guard, police said.
Ten bystanders were lightly to moderately wounded in the shootout – apparently from the guard’s gunfire – including six Jews, two Armenians and two Muslims.
Police and rescue officials were on the scene, and a police source told Israel Radio that the “situation was under control.”
The late-morning incident occurred near the Latin Patriarchate by the Jaffa Gate, when the assailant grabbed the guard’s gun and shot him twice in the chest, Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. The second guard killed the man as he tried to flee the scene.
The victims of the attack were rushed by Magen David Adom paramedics to three Jerusalem hospitals.
The assailant, roughly 20 years old, did not carry any documents identifying him, police said.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski condemned the attack, saying that the city would not capitulate to attempts to undermine its security.
Immediately following the attack, an eyewitness told Israel Radio that the security guards had continued shooting the assailant even after he had already been killed.
“They continued to shoot [the attacker] after he was on the ground,” the witness said.