The authorities reported that two security personnel and two tourists were killed in an attack near a synagogue in Tunisia on Tuesday, which happened during an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba that brings hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel.
According to a statement from the Interior Ministry, a guard at a naval base on Djerba organised the attack by shooting a fellow guardsman and taking his ammunition before entering the synagogue.
The assailant opened fire randomly at security posts close to the synagogue, killing two guests and one security guard while injuring five guards and four other people. He was then killed by security personnel, according to the Interior Ministry.
One of the tourists slain was French and one was Tunisian, according to the foreign ministry of Tunisia.
Although militants have targeted the pilgrimage in Djerba before and have staged other attacks in the nation, authorities have not yet determined a reason for the attack.
A bomb that targeted police outside the American embassy in 2020 and resulted in one officer’s death was Tunisia’s most recent big incident. In 2019, two suicide bombings struck police outside the French embassy, killing one officer in each.
Recall, militants killed scores of tourists in two separate attacks at a beach resort and a Tunis museum in 2015.
Hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel frequently go to Djerba, a vacation island off the coast of southern Tunisia, 500 km (300 miles) from the country’s capital Tunis, as part of their yearly pilgrimage to Africa’s oldest synagogue.
Since al Qaeda extremists struck the synagogue in 2002 with a vehicle bomb, killing 21 Western visitors, the pilgrimage has been subject to strict security.
One of the largest Jewish communities in North Africa is found in primarily Muslim Tunisia. Jews have lived in Tunisia since Roman times, albeit there are currently fewer than 1,800 of them.
According to a tweet from the U.S. embassy, Joey Hood, the ambassador of the United States, and Deborah Lipstadt, the representative for tracking and fighting anti-Semitism, went to the synagogue on Monday.