2021 Jerusalem shooting

On 21 November 2021, a shooting occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem as a group of people were making their way to prayer. According to Wikipedia's account of the incident, Fadi Abu Shkhaydem, a 42-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, shot and killed Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old dual citizen of Israel and South Africa who had made aliyah in 2019 and worked as a tour guide. Abu Shkhaydem also injured four other people, including a rabbi, before he was shot dead by responding police officers.

Israeli authorities recorded that the attacker shot the tour guide multiple times; Kay was later pronounced dead at Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem. The gunman also wounded a rabbi and seriously injured a yeshiva student during the attack. Police responded quickly, firing at the shooter and killing him; two police officers sustained mild injuries in the exchange.

The attacker, Fadi Abu Shkhaydem, was a high school teacher at the Rashidiya school in the Shuafat neighbourhood of Jerusalem. He was widely known to be a member of Hamas and had regularly preached sermons at the Temple Mount, as well as participating in demonstrations against Israeli tourism in the area. His wife, who had traveled to Jordan three days before the attack to visit her ailing mother, was arrested the following day at the Allenby Bridge crossing. A police report concluded that Abu Shkhaydem was most likely motivated by "nationalist reasons." In January 2022, the family's house was issued a demolition order as part of a broader Israeli policy.

In the immediate aftermath, the Temple Mount was closed to visitors. Later the same day, Hamas confirmed that the attacker was a member of the organization and described the attack as a "heroic operation." The shooting was the second attack in Jerusalem's Old City within four days and marked the first Israeli civilian casualty since the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.

The attack drew condemnation from a range of Israeli officials and organizations, including President Isaac Herzog, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, and then–Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The following day, both France and the United States Department of State issued statements condemning the shooting, and diplomat Dimiter Tzantchev also condemned the attack as "senseless."

This summary is based on the Wikipedia article on the 2021 Jerusalem shooting. Corroborating contemporaneous coverage from The New York Times and CNN is cited alongside this source, though the specific text of those articles was not available for direct review in compiling this dossier.