Man killed after setting himself on fire outside Tunisian synagogue, two others injured

A man set himself on fire in front of the Grand Synagogue in the Tunisian capital and was killed by police, the Interior Ministry said. A police officer and a passerby suffered burns.

The man started the fire after sundown Friday, around the time the synagogue holds Sabbath prayers.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the man advanced toward a law enforcement officer while ablaze, and a second officer opened fire to protect his colleague. The officer was hospitalized with burns, as was a passerby, the statement said.

The ministry did not release the man’s identity or potential motive for his act, saying only that he had unspecified psychiatric disorders.

Tunisia was historically home to a large Jewish population, now estimated to number about 1,500 people. Jewish sites in Tunisia have been targeted in the past.

A national guardsman killed five people at the more than 2,600-year-old El-Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba after an annual pilgrimage in 2023. Later that year, pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized a historic synagogue and sanctuary in the southern town of El Hamma. And a garden was set ablaze last year outside the synagogue in the coastal city of Sfax.