Brussels
– Local media report gunman kills 3 in central Brussels shooting rampage
near Jewish Museum; Belgium interior minister, who was at scene, claims: ‘It is
likely that this is an antisemitic attack.’
Three
people were killed Saturday afternoon in a shooting outside the Jewish Museum
in the central Brussels, Belgium, in what is likely an anti-Semitic attack.
According
to La Libre, three people died and another was seriously injured during the
shootout Saturday, around 3:50 pm local time, at the Sablon in Brussels.
According to the report, twelve people suffered shocked and a fourth victim is
in critical condition; one person was also reported in custody – however the
report was not confirmed.
Two
senior Belgium minister were in the area, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders and
Interior Minister Joëlle Milquet. According to the latter, “it is likely
that this is an anti-Semitic attack.”
Julien
Klener, who heads the Consistoire Central Israèlite de Belgique, the official
Jewish umbrella organization representing Judaism and local Jewish communities
in the country, told media that “there have been recent threats to the
Jewish Museum.”
“This is a terrorist act, the assassin
entered deliberately in a Jewish museum,” President of the Belgian League
Against Antisemitism (LBCA) Joel Rubinfeld told the AFP.
“He killed three people, wounded one,
with a car waiting nearby,” added Rubinfeld, claiming that as of late
there has been a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric, and according to him, such an
event “is the inevitable result of a climate which distils hatred.”
A
spokesman for the Brussels fire brigade said the shooter drove up to the
museum, went inside and fired shots.
“According to the information we have
at the moment, it was a solitary shooter and it seems to have happened inside
the museum,” Pierre Meys, Brussels fire brigade spokesman, told French
channel BFM TV.
According
to the La Libre report, a man drew up to the museum in an Audi, exited the car
and opened fire on bypasses. He then reportedly reentered the car and fled the
scene.
The
report further claimed that two women and one man were killed in the attack,
the identity of the victims were confirmed by the Brussels police commander
Guido Van Wymersch.
“I
heard the shots , I ran and I saw the body on the ground,” Minister
Reynders reportedly told La Libre. Reynders tweeted that he was “Shocked
by the killings at the Jewish Museum, I think of the victims I saw on site and
their families.”
Belgium
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was also reportedly “very shocked”.
