Six people stabbed by religious protester at gay pride march in Jerusalem

A religious protester armed with a knife ran amok during Jerusalem’s gay pride march, stabbing six people, the Guardian reports.

One of the victims, a woman was seriously injured by the attack which is being described as the worst incident of homophobic violence in the city in a decade

Eyewitnesses say that the attacker – named by a police spokesman as Yishai Schlissel – had hidden himself in a supermarket and waited for the march to arrive.

Schlissel was seen running, and screaming through the crowd in a central Jerusalem street, stabbing people at random before being overpowered by police.

Media report that Schlissel is an ultra-Orthodox Jew who had been released from prison three weeks earlier after serving a sentence for stabbing three people at a gay pride march in 2005.

The march, attracting thousands of participants, has long been a focus of tension between Israel’s predominantly secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority, who object to homosexuality.

While the event takes place annually without incident in the more gay-friendly business hub of Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, where the religious population is more dominant, violence has erupted in the past.

Eye witnesses said that the attack was sudden, and that Schlissel was “running and stabbing,” with one witness adding his eyes were “filled with hate”.

Images in the Israeli media showed the moment that Schlissel, held down by several police, was arrested.

Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, condemned the attack “as a most serious incident”. “In the state of Israel, the individual’s freedom of choice is one of basic values. We must ensure that in Israel, every man and woman lives in security in any way they choose. That’s how we acted in the past and how we’ll continue to act. I wish the wounded a speedy recovery,” he said in a statement.

Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, also quickly condemned the attack. “We came together today for a festive event, but the joy was shattered when a terrible hate crime occurred here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. 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. I wish the injured a full and speedy recovery.”

Schlissel, was recently released from prison after serving 10 years of a 12-year sentence for attempted murder. According to Israeli media, after his release he had distributed handwritten pamphlets calling on “all Jews faithful to God” to risk “beatings and imprisonment” for the sake of preventing the parade.

On Thursday, a 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”.

The parade continued after the wounded were taken to a hospital, with protesters chanting, “End the violence.”