|
Police, who were called to the site because of smoke coming out
of the building, shot the man when he threw an iron bar at them
and threatened them with a knife as he left the synagogue, a
Rouen city official said.
The fire had been brought under control, the official said.
The synagogue suffered significant damage, including to its
furniture, but no one was harmed, Rouen mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol
said, adding that the Normandy town was "battered and shocked".
"An armed man somehow climbed up the synagogue and threw an
object, a sort of molotov cocktail, into the main praying room,"
Mayer-Rossignol told reporters.
The attacker's identity and motive were still unclear.
France, like many countries across Europe, has seen a huge spike
in antisemitic acts since Hamas' Oct. 7 deadly attack on Israel
and Israel's invasion of Gaza in response.
"It's once again an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the
Jews of our country," Yonathan Arfi, president of the CRIF
Jewish advocacy group, said on X.
France hosts the Olympic Summer Games in just over two months
and recently raised its alert status to the highest level
against a complex geopolitical backdrop in the Middle East and
Europe's eastern flank.
The synagogue was surrounded by a series of security cameras,
Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said.
"Tonight is Shabbat and it is important to light the candles to
show that we're not afraid, that we continue to practice Judaism
despite the circumstances," Rouen's Rabbi Chmouel Lubecki, told
BFM TV.
(Additional reporting by Zhifan Liu, Charlotte van Campenhout;
Writing by Tassilo Hummel and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Benoit
Van Overstraeten, Richard Lough and Alex Richardson)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
