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30 Jul 2015

Jerusalem gay pride: ‘ultra-Orthodox’ attacker stabs six

Six participants in Jerusalem’s annual gay pride event are stabbed in what is thought to be an attack by an ultra-Othrodox Jewish assailant.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack, the worst at the event in years, as “a most serious incident”.

Around 5,000 were waving banners as they marched down an avenue in the Israeli capital, when the attacker jumped into the crowd and “started stabbing everyone in his way”, one witness said.

Pictures from the scene (above) showed bystanders apparently overpowering a man and disarming him.

Two of the injured are in a serious condition, medics said.

Police said they had arrested the suspected perpetrator and were questioning him.

The event is a source of tension between Israel’s predominantly secular majority and ultra-orthodox Jewish minority.

In 2005 an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, Yishai Schlissel, was jailed for stabbing four people at the gay pride event.