Gunman killed in shootout near Israeli consulate in Munich, on 1972 attack anniversary
Police shoot dead Austrian, 18, who used rifle with a bayonet attached in ‘assumed terror attack’ on consulate; local reports suggest he was known to authorities as an Islamist
A gunman opened fire near the Israeli consulate in Munich on Thursday and was killed by police, in a suspected terror attack on the 52nd anniversary of the deadly terror attack there during the 1972 Olympics. No one else was hurt.
The consulate is located very close to the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, located on the site of the former Nazi party headquarters, leading some media to suggest the museum may have been the potential target.
State Interior Minister Joachim Herrman later said at a press conference that German authorities are treating the shooting as a “possible attack on an Israeli institution.”
In a later statement, German police said that they are assuming the man was planning “a terrorist attack” on the consulate.
“It is assumed to be a terrorist attack involving the Consulate General of the State of Israel,” Bavaria state police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Thursday, Munich police chief Thomas Hampel said the gunman was an 18-year-old Austrian man. The suspect’s motive is under investigation, a spokesperson added.
ניסיון פיגוע בגרמניה: יריות נורו לעבר הקונסוליה הישראלית במינכן – אין נפגעים, היורה נוטרל@DovGilHar pic.twitter.com/FQGgBTeSfE
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 5, 2024
German media outlets reported that the suspect was known to security authorities as an Islamist. The suspect lived in Austria’s Salzburg area near the border with Bavaria and had recently traveled to Germany, the reports said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday that “antisemitism and Islamism have no place here.”
“The quick reaction of the emergency services in Munich may have prevented something terrible from happening today,” Scholz posted on X.
According to a police spokesperson, officers were alerted to a person carrying a “long gun” in the Karolinenplatz area, near downtown Munich, at around 9 a.m.
There was then an exchange of shots in which the suspect sustained fatal injuries, but there no was no indication that anyone else was hurt, spokesperson Andreas Franken told reporters.
The man, who was carrying an old make of firearm with a repeating mechanism, died at the scene. Video showed the man with a rifle with a bayonet attached.
Police said there was no evidence that any other suspects were connected to the incident. They increased their presence in the city, Germany’s third-biggest, but said they had no indication of incidents at any other locations or of any other suspects.
Five officers were at the scene at the time; police deployed to the area in force after the shooting.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the incident, and said that the consulate was closed at the time for the annual ceremony commemorating the 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
At those Games, eight members of the Black September terror group broke into the Israeli Olympic team’s residence, immediately killing one coach and one member of the weightlifting team, and taking nine more Israeli team members hostage. All were killed during a botched rescue operation, as was a West German police officer.
President Isaac Herzog spoke with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the shooting, and thanked security forces for quickly neutralizing the gunman.
“On the day our brothers and sisters in Munich were set to stand in remembrance of our brave athletes murdered by terrorists 52 years ago, a hate-fueled terrorist came and once again sought to murder innocent people,” Herzog wrote on X.
He also thanked the German security services “for their swift action,” writing, “Together we stand strong in the face of terror. Together we will overcome.”
New video shows gunman firing shots near the Israeli consulate in Munich, Germany. He was later shot dead by police pic.twitter.com/Him4kE0ao6
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) September 5, 2024
Speaking at an unrelated news conference in Berlin, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that “the protection of Jewish and Israeli facilities has the highest priority.”
In a brief statement on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the background of the attack was still not completely known.
“What we do know takes our breath away. There could have been a catastrophe in Munich today. I thank the police for their quick intervention,” he said.
The shooting came after police in the southwest German city of Heidelberg opened an investigation into an assault Monday by an unidentified man on an Israeli woman and her husband.
The attack was apparently motivated by the woman’s shirt, which bore a Star of David and the phrase “Bring Them Home Now,” referring to Israelis held hostage by the Hamas terror group.
According to police, the attacker first approached the woman and demanded she remove the shirt, and then attacked her as well as her husband when he tried to help. By the time police arrived at the scene, the assailant had fled.
The woman sustained minor injuries to her upper body, according to police.
Antisemitic incidents in Germany shot up following Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, which started the ongoing war between Israel and the terror group. Attacks targeting Jews and Israelis have surged worldwide since the attack.
