BERLIN - Two people were killed in a
shooting in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday and a
suspect was arrested, police said, with broadcasters showing
images of an alleged perpetrator dressed in combat garb
including a helmet.
Mass-selling daily Bild said the shooting took place in
front of a synagogue, and that a hand grenade was also thrown
into a Jewish cemetery. An eyewitness told n-tv that someone
had also fired shots into a kebab bistro in Halle.
The violence occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the
year in Judaism when Jews fast for 25 hours, seeking atonement.
An unnamed eyewitness told local media the assailant at the
synagogue was dressed in combat gear including a helmet, and had
thrown several explosive devices into the cemetery.
Regional public broadcaster MDR broadcast images of a man in
combat clothing firing shots along a street from behind a car.
Broadcaster Welt also showed a still image of a man in combat
gear with a gun.
"Our forces have detained one person," local police said on
Twitter. "Please nonetheless remain vigilant." Earlier, police
tweeted: "According to initial findings, two people were killed
in Halle. There were several shots."
Gunshots were also heard in Landsberg, a Halle suburb, Focus
Online reported.
"This is terrible news from Halle and I hope very much that
the police catch the perpetrator, or perpetrators, as quickly as
possible," government spokesman Steffen Seibert said,
interrupting a regular government news conference.
National rail operator Deutsche Bahn said the main train
station in Halle had been closed.
Police did not immediately confirm the media reports
associating the gunfire and grenade attack with Jewish targets.
Anti-Semitism is an especially sensitive issue in Germany,
which during World War Two was responsible for the genocide of 6
million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust.
Despite comprehensive de-Nazification in the post-war era,
fears of resurgent anti-Semitic hatred have never completely
gone away, whether from fringe, far-right neo-Nazis or more
recently from Muslim immigrants.
Occasional past attacks have ranged from the scrawling of
Nazi swastikas on gravestones to firebombings at synagogues and
even several murders. In recent years, cases of assault or
verbal abuse, in some cases directed against people wearing
traditional Jewish skullcaps, have raised an outcry.
Reuters