Two police officers outside a synagogue in Tunis were slightly injured in a knife attack overnight from Thursday to Friday (June 24), the Tunisian Interior Ministry said.
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The attack was carried out by a former prisoner sentenced in a case “terroristand released in 2021, Fakher Bouzghaya, head of communications at the ministry, told AFP. According to him, the man, armed with a knife, attacked police officers posted in front of the old synagogue in the center of Tunis, slightly injuring two of them before being subdued. An investigation is underway to elucidate the circumstances of the attack and the motives of the assailant, according to the same source.
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Tunisia had more than 100,000 Jews before independence in 1956, a community that has now fallen to about a thousand members. This attack took place against the backdrop of a deep political crisis in Tunisia since the coup by President Kais Saied who assumed full powers last July. After the revolution against the dictatorship of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia experienced a rise in jihadist groups responsible for several attacks that left dozens dead.