Thursday, October 19, 2023

Historic synagogue in Tunisia heavily damaged in rioting tied to Israel-Hamas war

JTA – A historic but defunct synagogue in Tunisia was reduced to rubble on Tuesday amid mass rioting after an explosion in a Gaza hospital that terror group Hamas and much of the Arab world falsely blamed on Israel.

Hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to a synagogue in the central Tunisian city of Al Hammah in the hours after the explosion, at a Gaza City hospital where Hamas said many people died. Videos that circulated widely on social media showed people planting Palestinian flags and chipping away at the synagogue building’s stone walls, all without any police intervention.

Some users shared the video of the arson alongside a #Palestine hashtag. A video taken Wednesday shows heavy damage to the site, including to the fenced-off grave of a 16th-century rabbi that been a historic pilgrimage site for some Jews.

The incident, which has deprived Al Hammah of a key vestige of its Jewish past, comes amid attacks on other Jewish and Israeli sites around the world — including Germany, France, Portugal, China, and Australia — as Israel targets Hamas in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s deadly shock attack on Israel October 7 in which some 1,400 people were massacred, mostly civilians, and some 200-250 were abducted and taken to Gaza.

Protests against Israel ramped up Tuesday night after the hospital explosion, for which Israel has provided proof was caused by an errant rocket fired by Gaza terrorists. Dozens of rioters targeted the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan. Riots also broke out in Palestinian areas of the West Bank, Hebrew media reported. READ MORE