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UK police said they accidentally shot a victim who died in the attack on a synagogue in Manchester, as well as one of the survivors, as they attempted to stop an attacker who appeared to be wearing an explosive belt.
In Thursday’s attack two men, Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed after a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing people outside Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The attacker, shot dead by officers at the scene, was not carrying a firearm, said Greater Manchester Police chief constable Steve Watson, though one of those killed suffered a gunshot wound.
“This injury may have been tragically sustained as an unforeseen consequence of the urgent measures my officers took to halt this brutal attack,” Watson stated.
Watson said another worshipper is believed to have suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, and that it is thought both victims were close together behind the synagogue door, as worshippers tried to prevent the attacker from gaining entry.
The police complaints watchdog said it was carrying out an investigation into what happened.
Two Jewish people were killed in the attack, and three remain in a serious condition.
Attacker identified
Police have identified the attacker as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, and said they could find no records to show he had been referred to the government’s anti-radicalisation programme.
The head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Laurence Taylor, said in an update late on Friday that authorities believe Al-Shamie may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology, though establishing the full circumstances of the attack would likely take time.
Al-Shamie was not known to Counter Terrorism Policing but has prior criminal history, including a recent arrest for rape, following which he was bailed, Taylor said.
“We have now detained three additional individuals, one man and two women, ranging in age from 18 to their mid-40s. This increases the total number of people in custody, arrested under suspicion of commission, preparation, and instigation of terrorist acts, to six,” Taylor mentioned.
The UK’s Jewish community is in shock after the deadly synagogue attack on Yom Kippur. Source: Getty / Christopher Furlong
‘Heinous act’
In a statement on Facebook, Shamie’s family said they were in “profound shock” and wanted to distance themselves from what they called his “heinous act”.
The British government vowed to redouble its efforts to tackle antisemitism as the Jewish community reeled from the attack.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the site of the attack and spoke with police and ambulance workers, praising “the degree of professionalism and speed” they showed in their response.
When Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy spoke at a vigil outside the synagogue on Friday he was heckled by people who said “Jews don’t want to live here anymore” and urged him to stop the pro-Palestinian marches that have taken place in British cities regularly since the start of the Gaza war.
UK, like other European countries and the United States, has recorded a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in the nearly two years since the Gaza conflict began.
Last year was the second-worst on record for such incidents, surpassed only by 2023, according to the Community Security Trust, which provides security to Jewish organisations across Britain. It recorded more than 3,500 incidents in 2024.
Many Jewish leaders noted that they were the only faith in Britain that routinely required security at its institutions.
Islamophobic incidents in Britain have also increased since the start of the Gaza war.
Last month, Starmer announced that Britain was recognising a Palestinian state in the hope of reviving peace for Palestinians and Israelis, a decision decried by Israel as a “huge reward to terrorism”.
Manchester, in northwestern England, is a highly diverse city home to the country’s largest Jewish community outside London.
