Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on November 23, 2014

Israeli emergency personnel walk past blood on the floor in a synagogue that was the scene of an attack by two Palestinians on Israeli worshippers in the ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighborhood in Jerusalem on November 18, 2014. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

Last Updated Nov 18, 2014 11:05 AM EST

JERUSALEM -- Two Palestinians stormed a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday, attacking worshippers praying inside with meat cleavers and a gun, and killing four people before they were killed in a shootout with police, officials said.

Three of the victims -- Aryeh Kopinsky, Calman Levine, Moshe Twersky -- were dual American-Israeli citizens, a police official confirmed to CBS News. The fourth, Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, was a dual British-Israeli citizen. All four were also rabbis. A fifth victim, a policeman, died of his wounds later, CBS News reported. He was identified in the Jerusalem Post as 30-year-old Zidan Saif.

30 Photos

Four rabbis killed in deadliest attack in Jerusalem in years as tensions soar.

In a statement, President Obama condemned the attack, but urged for calm on all sides.

"At this sensitive moment in Jerusalem, it is all the more important for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and ordinary citizens to work cooperatively together to lower tensions, reject violence, and seek a path forward towards peace," Mr. Obama said.

It was the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in years and was bound to ratchet up fears of sustained violence in the city, already on edge amid soaring tensions over a contested holy site.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will "respond harshly" to the attack, describing it as a "cruel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Netanyahu after the assault and denounced it as an "act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence."

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3 U.S. citizens killed in Jerusalem synagogue attack

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