UNITED NATIONS

UN Security Council condemns 'terrorist attack' in Jerusalem

The United Nations Security Council has condemned a deadly attack on worshipers at a Jerusalem synagogue. It also called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take steps to restore calm.

A statement passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council late on Wednesday condemned Tuesday's deadly attack in a Jerusalem synagogue in the strongest possible terms, describing it as a "despicable terrorist attack."

In the statement, the Security Council also "encouraged Israeli and Palestinian leaders and citizens to work together to lower tension, reject violence, avoid all provocations and seek a path toward peace."

In Tuesday's attack, four rabbis and a police officer were killed after two Palestinian cousins burst into the synagogue wielding meat cleavers and a pistol. Among those killed were three American citizens and one British national.

In what appeared to be a warning to Israel not to overreact to the attack, which has been met with wide international condemnation, including from Germany, the European Union and the United States, the Council "reminded states that they must ensure that measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law."

Shortly after the news of the attack broke, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to respond with a heavy hand to what was the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in several years.

Home demolition

"I have ordered the destruction of the homes of the Palestinians who carried out this massacre and to speed up the demolitions of those who carried out previous attacks," he announced late on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, security forces began implementing his orders, blowing up the east Jerusalem apartment of a Palestinian man who drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians on October 22, killing two people.

After the flat had been razed, Netanyahu described this as "a significant and important step" towards restoring security to Jerusalem.

Incidents of violence in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank have surged in the few weeks, fuelled in part by a dispute over a Jerusalem holy site referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

pfd/sms (AP, AFP)  dw de