Stabbings of 6 in holy city unsettle gay pride parade

Israeli police chase suspect Yishai Schlissel through the crowd Thursday at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Six people were stabbed before Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was subdued.
Israeli police chase suspect Yishai Schlissel through the crowd Thursday at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Six people were stabbed before Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was subdued.

JERUSALEM -- An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man lunged into a group of revelers leading Jerusalem's annual gay pride parade and stabbed six Thursday evening as they marched in the holy city, Israeli police and witnesses said.

photo

AP

Yishai Schlissel, who was arrested in a similar attack in 2005, is seen pulling his knife from his coat before the rampage.

photo

AP

Revelers comfort each other after Yishai Schlissel’s arrest.

The suspect , Yishai Schlissel, recently had been released from prison after serving a term for stabbing several people at a gay pride parade in 2005, police spokesman Luba Samri said, adding that he was arrested at the scene of Thursday's attack.

Eli Bin of Israel's emergency service said six people were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously.

The annual parade was proceeding as planned when the crowd's joyful chants gave way to screams.

A man with a wound in his back wandered around with a dazed look before collapsing. Another man with his shirt off also suffered a back wound. Medics quickly surrounded them both and applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

Shocked revelers, some in tears, gathered along the sidewalk as ambulances and police on horses quickly arrived on the scene.

Media reports said Schlissel hid in a nearby supermarket and jumped out to attack the march when it passed nearby.

Jerusalem police spokesman Asi Ahroni said there was a "massive presence" of police securing the parade but "unfortunately the man managed to pull out a knife and attack."

A medic who treated the wounded at the scene, Hanoch Zelinger, said one woman was stabbed in the back, chest and neck and was lying unconscious on the ground.

Shaarei Tzedek hospital said it was treating a man with stab wounds who was in serious condition and a woman in critical condition, both in their 20s.

The parade continued after the wounded were taken for treatment, but in a more somber atmosphere. Journalists reported that thousands of Jerusalem residents who had not participated in the parade joined in after the attack in solidarity.

"I do think that homophobia is rooted in the city, but that's the point of the parade," said Benny Zupick, 21, shortly after the attack. "We are trying to change that. And hopefully we will change that. It takes one man to create a scene like this. Hopefully he's a minority."

A majority of Jerusalem's residents are either observant Jews or Muslim or Christian Palestinians, conservative communities that oppose homosexuality. Previous parades have drawn opposition.

The heads of Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and other Israeli politicians condemned the attack.

"People celebrating their freedom and expressing their identity were viciously stabbed. We must not be deluded, a lack of tolerance will lead us to disaster. We cannot allow such crimes, and we must condemn those who commit and support them," President Reuven Rivlin said.

Jerusalem's annual parade is smaller and more restrained than the annual gay-pride march in Tel Aviv, which was attended by some 100,000 revelers last month.

Tel Aviv has emerged as one of the world's most gay friendly travel destinations recently, in sharp contrast to most of the rest of the Middle East, where gay people are persecuted or even killed.

Gay people serve openly in Israel's military and parliament, and many popular artists and entertainers are gay, but gay people still face hostility among religious Jews.

A Section on 07/31/2015

Upcoming Events