Police on Friday identified the two men who were killed in a car and knife attack on a synagogue in North West England on the holiest day of the Jewish year, as the UK's chief rabbi said an "unrelenting wave" of antisemitism lay behind the crime.
Greater Manchester Police announced that local residents Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died in the attack on the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in the Manchester suburb of Crumpsall. Three other people are hospitalised in serious condition.
Police shot and killed a suspect seven minutes after he rammed a car into pedestrians outside the synagogue on Thursday morning and then attacked them with a knife. He wore what appeared to be an explosives belt, which was found to be fake.
Police later said that one of the victims was killed by police during their attempts to bring the unarmed attacker under control.
"It is currently believed that the suspect, Jihad Al-Shamie, was not in possession of a firearm and the only shots fired were from GMP's Authorised Firearms Officer," the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) statement said.
"It follows therefore, that subject to further forensic examination, this injury may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end."
Police added that one of those injured and currently receiving treatment in hospital also suffered a gunshot wound. Both people believed to have been shot were behind the synagogue doors.
The assault took place as people gathered at the Orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the head of Orthodox Judaism in Britain, said the attack was the result of "an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred" on the streets and online.
"This is the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come," he wrote on social media.
The attacker was identified by police as Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent who entered the United Kingdom as a young child and became a citizen in 2006. Authorities are unsure whether that is his birth name, since Al-Shamie translates into English as "the Syrian".
Police said the crime is being investigated as a terrorist attack. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the attacker was not previously known to police or to Prevent, a national counterterror program that tries to identify people at risk of radicalisation.
Police said they are still probing the attacker's motive. Officers arrested three people Thursday on suspicion of the preparation or commission of acts of terrorism. They are two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.
Religious and political leaders condemned the attack and pledged to reassure Britain's Jewish community, which numbers about 300,000.
Recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK have risen sharply since the beginning of the Gaza war, according to Community Security Trust, an advocacy group for British Jews. More than 1,500 incidents were reported in the first half of the year, the second-highest six-month total reported since the record set over the same period a year earlier.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the "vile" assailant who "attacked Jews because they are Jews." He promised British Jews that he would do "everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve."
He said the country would come together "to wrap our arms around your community and show you that Britain is a place where you and your family are safe, secure and belong".
Starmer and his wife Victoria, who is Jewish, were seen shaking hands with emergency responders outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester.
Police in London urged organisers to call off a protest planned for Saturday to oppose the banning of the group Palestine Action. Organisers said they would not cancel the demonstration.
Editor's Note: This article was edited at 10:26 GMT to include a police statement clarifying that one of the victims may have been killed by police.