Two people have died in an attack German authorities are calling anti-Semitic.

A heavily armed suspect fired shots outside a synagogue and into a kebab bistro, authorities say.

A local Jewish community leader said a man tried to break into the synagogue.

A "heavily armed" gunman, who used a helmet-mounted camera to livestream his assault, shouted anti-Semitic taunts as he tried to force his way into an eastern German synagogue Wednesday on Yom Kippur, then killed two people at random out front. Police arrested a suspect.

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year in Judaism, when Jews fast for more than 24 hours.

The gunman shot the door of the synagogue in Halle where more than 70 people were huddled.

Just before firing, the gunman said in English, "The root of all problems are the Jews," according to Rita Katz, director of the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist and white supremacist organizations.

Katz said 35 minutes of head-mounted camera footage of the shooting was posted on a video game site.

Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, said authorities assume that the attack by the "heavily armed perpetrator" was anti-Semitic and prosecutors believe there may be a right-wing extremist motive. He said several people were injured.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel said the suspect is a 27-year-old, identified only as Stephan B., from the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Halle is located.

The magazine said the video shows the assailant shooting a passerby near a Jewish cemetery and a customer in a kebab bistro near the synagogue.

The head of Halle’s Jewish community, Max Privorotzki, told Der Spiegel that a camera at the entrance of the synagogue showed a person trying to break into the building.

“The assailant shot several times at the door and also threw several Molotov cocktails, firecrackers or grenades to force his way in,” he said. “But the door remained closed – God protected us. The whole thing lasted perhaps five to 10 minutes.”

Privorotzki said there were 70 or 80 people inside the synagogue when the shooting occurred.

A video clip broadcast by regional public broadcaster MDR and posted on Twitter shows a gunman stepping from a vehicle, firing his weapon, walking behind the car, then firing three more times.

Conrad Roessler told n-tv that he had been in the kebab shop near the synagogue when a man in a helmet and a military jacket threw something that looked like a grenade, which bounced off the door frame. Roessler said the man shot into the shop at least once.

“All the customers next to me ran. Of course, I did, too – I think there were five or six of us in there,” Roessler said. “The man behind me probably died.

“I hid in the toilet,” he said. “The others looked for the back entrance. I didn’t know if there was one. I locked myself quietly in this toilet and wrote to my family that I love them and waited for something to happen.”

Police came into the shop, he said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, lamented what he called “terrible news from Halle.”

Photos from the scene showed a body lying in the street behind a police cordon.

Halle, a city of 240,000 residents, is about 80 miles southwest of Berlin. The German national railway shut down the local station after the shooting.

Contributing: The Associated Press