13 Dead, More Than 80 Wounded, As ISIS Claims Responsibility For Barcelona Day Of Terror
At least 13 people have been murdered and over 80 wounded in a vehicular-ramming attack along the famous Las Ramblas thoroughfare in the Catalan city of Barcelona on Thursday. Hours after the atrocity, reports emerged of a second attack in the city, as two men opened fire on police manning a checkpoint.
The Sunni Islamist terror organization ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released by the Amaq news agency, but there has been no independent verification of the group’s claim. Catalan President Carles Puigdemon said on Thursday evening that two suspects had been arrested.
Initial photos of the attack showed debris outside the kosher “Maccabi” Restaurant on Las Ramblas. However, a local journalist reached by The Algemeiner on Thursday afternoon said that the restaurant was not the target, an assessment later confirmed by the Barcelona Jewish community. Video footage of the attack indicated that the terrorists plowed their van into a crowd along the sidewalk, causing horrific injuries and fatalities. Las Ramblas is Barcelona’s most famous street, hosting crowds of locals and tourists and
Following attack, Barcelona’s chief rabbi says his community is doomed
The Jewish community in Barcelona is “doomed,” because authorities in Spain do not want to confront radical Islam, the chief rabbi of Barcelona warned on Friday, a day after the deadly car-ramming attack in the city.Barcelona Attack Hits near Kosher Restaurant, Keeping Israel on Edge
Rabbi Meir Bar-Hen has been encouraging his congregants to leave Spain, which he called during an interview with JTA a “hub of Islamist terror for all of Europe,” for years before the attacks Thursday and Friday, he said. At least 14 victims and five suspected terrorists were killed in Barcelona and the resort town of Cambrils, 75 miles south of the city.
To Bar-Hen, whose community on Friday resumed activities that it had suspended briefly following the Barcelona attack, “Jews are not here permanently,” he said of the city and region. “I tell my congregants: Don’t think we’re here for good. And I encourage them to buy property in Israel. This place is lost. Don’t repeat the mistake of Algerian Jews, of Venezuelan Jews. Better [get out] early than late.”
With thousands of Israelis currently on vacation in Barcelona at the height of the summer tourism season, Jerusalem carefully monitored the situation there following Thursday’s terrorist attack, trying to track down all Israelis believed to be in the area.Mincha prayers as kosher restaurant put on lockdown
As of 9:30 p.m. Israeli time, the Foreign Ministry put the number of Israelis who had not yet made contact with relatives in Israel at 31, and said there was no immediate indication that any Israelis were injured in the attack, which took place in the vicinity of the Maccabi kosher restaurant.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the country’s foreign minister, went to the ministry’s situation room soon after the attack to monitor developments and speak by video conference with Israel’s ambassador in Madrid, Daniel Kutner.
Netanyahu “strongly condemned” the attack, saying that “tonight we saw again that terrorism strikes everywhere, and the civilized world must fight it together to defeat it.”
The Israeli Embassy dispatched a delegation of three diplomats to Barcelona in case any of the Israelis there were in need of assistance.
Chief Rabbi of Barcelona Meir Bar-Hen said that all community events would be canceled, and that he was headed to the scene of the attack to offer his services. Bar- Hen said that it did not appear that Jews were targeted.
Barcelona Synagogue, Jewish Institutions Protectively Shuttered Following Terrorist Atrocity
Barcelona’s main synagogue will be closed for a minimum of 24 hours following Thursday’s deadly terrorist attack in the city, in which at least thirteen people were murdered and upwards of 100 wounded.
Barcelona Rabbi Meir Bar Chen said that all “community institutions” had been closed in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity. Bar Chen confirmed that “this was not a terrorist attack directed against Jews,” following initial reports that a kosher restaurant on the Las Ramblas thoroughfare along the path of the terrorists’ van had been their primary target.
In an interview with The Algemeiner on Thursday, a prominent Catalan journalist highlighted the vulnerabilities facing the Spanish authorities in confronting terrorism both regionally and nationally, as more details of the attack poured in.
“Measures against terrorism have been implemented, but there has been little cooperation between state and regional authorities, especially with the separatist issue in the frame,” Borja Vilallonga — editor-in-chief of the influential Catalan weekly El Temps — told The Algemeiner on Thursday afternoon.