The US secretary of state, John Kerry, blamed Palestinian leaders for the death of three American rabbis in Jerusalem on Tuesday, suggesting the brutal murders in a synagogue were “a pure result of incitement” by groups like Hamas and Fatah.



The three rabbis, all dual US-Israeli citizens, were killed along with a British-Israeli in a brutal attack on Jewish worshippers during early morning prayers.

Two Palestinian militants, who rampaged through the synagogue in the ultra-orthodox Har Nof district of west Jerusalem, armed with axes, knives and a pistol, were shot dead by police at the scene.

The American-Israeli victims, were Moshe Twersky, 59, Aryeh Kupinsky, 43 and Kalman Ze’ev Levine, 55. Twersky came from a prominent Jewish family; his father founded Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies and his grandfather was one of the originators of the Modern Orthodox movement. The British-Israeli victim was Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68.

Barack Obama called on Palestinian leaders and ordinary citizens “to work cooperatively together to lower tensions” in a statement released by the White House. “There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians,” the US president said.

Speaking in London hours earlier, Kerry went further, linking the attack – one of the deadliest in recent years in Jerusalem – to repeated calls by Palestinian leaders for people to express their anger.

“To have this kind of act, which is a pure result of incitement, of calls for ‘days of rage’, of just irresponsibility, is unacceptable,” he said. “The Palestinian leadership must condemn this and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement.”

Kerry added: “Innocent people who had come to worship died in the sanctuary of a synagogue. They were hatcheted, hacked and murdered in that holy place in an act of pure terror and senseless brutality and murder. I call on Palestinians at every single level of leadership to condemn this in the most powerful terms.”

Although Kerry did not mention any Palestinian leaders or groups by name, the secretary of state’s remark about “days of rage” refers to calls by Palestinian leaders in recent months for citizens to express their anger on streets.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have repeatedly urged Palestinians to take to the streets on Fridays for “day of rage” protests. Fatah, the party of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, recently called for a “day of rage” over the decision by Israeli authorities to close the compound in Jerusalem’s Old City containing the al-Aqsa mosque.

On Tuesday Abbas’s office released a statement denouncing the killings in the synagogue: “The presidency condemns the attack on Jewish worshippers in their place of prayer and condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it.” In contrast Hamas, the rival militant Palestinian group that runs the Gaza Strip, praised the attack.

The Palestinian suspects have been identified as cousins Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group, said the two were its members. A PFLP statement did not specify whether the group instructed the cousins to carry out the attack.

In brief comments in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, relayed by a pool reporter, Obama said: “Too many Israelis have died; too many Palestinians have died. At this difficult time I think it’s important for both Palestinians and Israelis to try to work together to lower tensions and reject violence.”

He added: “We have to remind ourselves that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace.”

Tuesday’s attacks are a blow to Kerry, who made resolving the Israeli-Palestine conflict a priority for US diplomats. Kerry personally shepherded an intense period of diplomatic negotiations that lasted nine months but ended in failure in April.



