2008 Jerusalem yeshiva attack
On 6 March 2008, a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in West Jerusalem. Eight students and the assailant were killed. Eleven more were wounded, five of them placed in serious to critical condition.
| Mercaz HaRav Massacre | |
|---|---|
Memorial for the victims at the entrance to the library at Mercaz HaRav | |
The attack site | |
| Location | The Mercaz HaRav yeshiva at Kiryat Moshe, West Jerusalem |
| Coordinates | 31°47′16″N 35°11′49″E |
| Date | 6 March 2008 8:36 pm – 8:56 pm (GMT+2) |
Attack type | Mass shooting, massacre, school shooting |
| Weapon | AK-47 |
| Deaths | 9 (including the assailant) |
| Injured | 11 |
| Assailant | 1 (Alaa Abu Dheim) |
| Defenders | Yitzhak Dadon and David Shapira |
The attack began at 8:30 p.m. local time and ended sixteen minutes later. The attacker was stopped by long-time Mercaz HaRav student Yitzhak Dadon and off-duty Israel Defense Forces Captain David Shapira, who killed the perpetrator with their personal firearms.
The attack itself was praised by Hamas and, according to a subsequent poll, was supported by 84 percent of the Palestinian population, the highest result showing support for violence in 15 years, which the pollster concluded was the result of recent actions by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. It was condemned in official statements by various countries around the world.