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forces after the attack
Photo: ATEF SAFADI/EPA
The attack on visitors to a synagogue in an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem has sparked horror.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this apparently terrorist attack," said the spokesman for the US State Department in Washington.
"Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to those who were killed and injured in this heinous act of violence." The act was "absolutely appalling."
US President Joe Biden instructed his team to contact Israeli colleagues immediately to offer support in caring for the victims and prosecuting the perpetrators, the White House said.
“The attack on a synagogue on Holocaust Remembrance Day and on Shabbat is appalling.
We stand with our Israeli friends," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Twitter.
The attack killed seven people in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov on Friday evening and injured at least three others.
The police initially spoke of a terrorist attack.
The German Ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, has also expressed his sympathy.
He spoke of a "nasty act of terrorism against Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day."
"My condolences go out to the families of the murdered victims and I pray for the health of those injured."
The attack was carried out on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
On January 27, 1945, Red Army soldiers liberated the survivors of the German concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
The Nazis had murdered more than a million people there.
Guterres 'deeply concerned'
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said through a spokesman that he was "deeply concerned" about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
He calls for "extreme restraint".
The United Arab Emirates also condemned the attack, the state news agency reported, citing a statement from the foreign ministry.
Contrasting reactions are coming from Gaza and the West Bank.
Eyewitnesses reported militants firing into the air and pouring into the streets to celebrate.
A spokesman for the radical Islamist group Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip, said the attack was "retaliation for the Israeli army's attack on the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday".
Nine Palestinians were killed and 20 others injured in a firefight with Israeli soldiers.
According to the human rights organization Betselem, it was the deadliest military attack in the area in more than 20 years.
ani/dpa/Reuters
