by Claude Kandiyoti, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
At least three people killed in the attack • Belgian interior minister: We have decided to apply maximum protection to Jewish sites • Belgian premier: Everything "has been mobilized that can be mobilized" to bring killer to justice.
|
Belgian
police cordon off the area surrounding the shooting in Brussels, Saturday
|
Photo credit: EPA  | |||||
|
|
The two Israelis killed in a shooting attack at a Jewish museum in
central Brussels on Saturday were named as Mira and Emanuel Riva, Tel Aviv
residents in their 50s who were apparently vacationing in the Belgian capital.
They are survived by two teenage daughters.
A third fatality in the shooting was a local female museum
volunteer. A fourth victim, a 23-year-old museum employee, sustained critical
injuries. Several unconfirmed reports suggested he may have succumbed to his
wounds early Sunday.
Belgian officials said the incident may have been motivated by anti-Semitism. The shooter is still at large.
Belgian officials said the incident may have been motivated by anti-Semitism. The shooter is still at large.
The Foreign Ministry issued a statement Saturday indicating that
the Israeli Embassy in Brussels was in contact with the local authorities and
would be arranging the transfer of the bodies to Israel.
Two women were reportedly shot at the entrance to the museum,
after which the shooter proceeded inside and shot the two men, killing one of
them and critically wounding the other.
All the victims sustained gun shot wounds to the face or throat,
said Ine Van Wymersch, spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor's office.
Van Wymersch said there was no clear information about the
perpetrator, although a fire brigade official said earlier that the shooter had
driven up to the museum, gone inside and fired shots.
One suspect was detained after he drove away from the museum
around the time of the attack. A second person being sought for questioning left
the area on foot. The Belgian news site HLN.be reported on Saturday night that
police no longer regard the person they detained as a suspect and were hunting
for the culprits.
Van Wymersch said security camera footage was being studied to try
to identify the person.
"Regarding the motive, we have little information. Everything is
possible," she told a news conference.
"We know that the location, the Jewish Museum in Brussels, makes
one think of it being an anti-Semitic attack, but we do not have enough to
confirm this is the case."
A statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office
condemned the attack and said, "This act of murder is the result of constant
incitement against Jews and their state."
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, who was in the vicinity
and saw the bodies of two of the victims lying at the entrance of the museum,
said the scene "was terrible and left me shocked." The museum is in Brussels'
swanky Sablon neighborhood.
Reynders said that "you cannot help to think that when we see [an
attack at] a Jewish museum, you think of an anti-Semitic act. But the
investigation will have to show the causes."
Interior Minister Joelle Milquet told reporters that the shooter
apparently parked a car outside before entering the Jewish Museum. She added the
gunman "apparently fired rather quickly, went outside and left."
Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo expressed support for the
Jewish community, and said "everything has been mobilized that can be mobilized"
to bring the killer or killers to justice.
"All Belgians are united," he said.
Milquet said anti-terror measures had immediately been heightened
as a precaution.
"We decided to apply a maximum level of protection to Jewish
sites," Milquet said.
In neighboring France, President Francois Hollande condemned the
"horrifying killings, with the greatest force." In a statement, he expressed
France's solidarity with Belgium and offered condolences to the families of the
victims.
The parallels between the attack in Brussels and the deadly
shooting rampage at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse
some two years ago was not lost on security officials.
Claude Moniquet, a former agent of the France's DSGE spy agency
told the Jewish Telegraph Agency that the Brussels shooting "is reminiscent of
the Toulouse and Montauban killings and resembles other similar attacks,
including by Islamists."
Moniquet, who heads the European Strategic Intelligence and
Security Center, a Brussels-based think tank, told JTA that "the characteristics
of this attack mean it was planned for some time, a few days at the least. This
is evident from the fact that the perpetrators selected one of the only Jewish
institutions that are not protected."
Regarding the possibility of more attacks, Moniquet added the
decision to elevate security was "necessary because the perpetrators presumably
knew they were on a no-way-out operation. They are working under the assumption
that they will be caught within days, and therefore have a motivation to
maximize the attack by striking again if capable."
Joel Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League against
Anti-Semitism, told the Financial Times that he had been expecting such an
attack for some time.
"This kind of attack was in the air," Rubinfeld said. "Over the
past few years we've allowed anti-Semitic speech to run loose; it's this violent
language that has armed the terrorists' guns."
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said that,
although it had yet to be established whether the attack was anti-Semitic, "we
are acutely aware of the permanent threat to Jewish targets in Belgium and
across the whole of Europe."
"European governments must send out a clear message of zero
tolerance toward any manifestation of anti-Semitism," Kantor said in a
statement.
The attack, which took place shortly before 4 p.m., occurred in
the Sablon area, which was hosting a three-day jazz festival and is usually
clogged with tourists and shoppers on weekends. It has cobblestone streets with
numerous antique shops, trendy cafes and museums, including the Jewish
Museum.
Police cordoned off several streets around the museum with
blue-and-white police tape, and numerous ambulances and police vans were at the
scene.
Viviane Teitelbaum, a member of the Brussels legislature, said
anti-Semitic attacks reached a peak in the early 1980s and had dropped off, but
she had noted a recent rise in anti-Jewish sentiment.
"It has been a very difficult place to live" for Jews, she said,
adding that many young people are leaving the country. She said some 40,000 Jews
live in Belgium, half of whom reside in Brussels.
Simone Susskind, another Brussels politician, said the museum has
been at its current site for around a decade, after moving from an old synagogue
in southern Brussels. She said her late husband David was a driving force behind
the museum's creation, believing that as home of the European Union and
self-proclaimed "capital of Europe," Brussels needed a museum to recount the
history of Belgium's Jewish community.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=17745
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment