Man stabs several people at Jerusalem gay pride parade

According to Magen David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, two of the casualties are in serious condition.

Five thousand marchers waving banners were heading down an avenue when an ultra-Orthodox man jumped into the crowd and started stabbing people, witnesses said.

The parade continued after the violence, with hundreds of police and Border Police officers placed along the route to protect the marchers.

The suspect in Thursday’s stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade, Yishai Shlissel, reportedly wrote and published a letter last week saying that there is an obligation to stop the “parade of sin” at all costs. In a letter made public on Saturday he criticized the “foul march”, while in a recent interview he admitted his 2005 attack was “an act of extremism… but this march has to be stopped”.

Israeli hospital officials said Friday that a 16-year-old girl remained in critical condition after the attack, with wounds to her chest and shoulder.

Police arrested the suspected perpetrator and were questioning him, police spokesman Assi Aharoni said.

The Charedi Orthodox man charged with stabbing six participants in the Jerusalem Pride Parade has been deemed psychologically fit to stand trial.

After police arrested the assailant, participants carried on with the march through streets decked with rainbow flags to a park where a party was planned for the evening.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly condemned the attack as a “very serious incident”. “We must not be deluded; a lack of tolerance will lead us to disaster”, he said.

He said: “We will prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law”.

This was not the first time that Schlissel had attacked gays. A majority of Jerusalem’s residents are observant Jews, Muslims or Christians, conservative communities whose members mostly frown on homosexuality. A similar Gay Pride event on June 12 in the more gay friendly business hub of Tel Aviv passed off without incident.

Gays serve openly in Israel’s military and parliament, and many popular artists and entertainers are gay, but gays still face hostility among religious Jews.