TUNIS: Tunisian president Kais Saied pledged on Wednesday to ensure the protection of Jewish residents and their temples, after assembly the nation’s chief rabbi within the wake of a lethal assault at a synagogue.
Final Tuesday a Nationwide Guardsman killed two Jewish guests and two policemen on the synagogue on Djerba island – Africa’s oldest – earlier than being shot useless. He had earlier killed a colleague at a naval set up.
Saied final week blamed the assault on “criminals” looking for to hurt the tourism sector.
On Wednesday he met with Tunisia’s chief rabbi, chief Christian archbishop and Muslim mufti, saying that receiving clerics despatched a “historic message” of coexistence and tolerance.
“We are going to present you safety in your temples. Dwell in peace and safety, and we are going to give you all safety circumstances,” Saied mentioned in a broadcast of a part of the assembly.
The Jewish victims of the assault, which occurred throughout an annual competition, have been two cousins, one French-Tunisian and the opposite Israeli-Tunisian.
“The president gave us ensures that what occurred lately wouldn’t occur once more”, Chief Rabbi Haïm Bittan mentioned.
Saied didn’t describe the capturing as terrorism, a time period he has typically used to label interventions by his political opponents since he prolonged his powers in 2021.
Primarily Muslim Tunisia is dwelling to one in every of North Africa’s largest Jewish communities with about 1,800 members.
The pilgrimage to the Djerba competition recurrently attracts a whole lot of Jews from Europe and Israel and has operated underneath tight safety since al Qaeda militants attacked the synagogue in 2002 with a truck bomb, killing 21 Western vacationers.