Tunisian police kill man who set himself on fire outside synagogue
No motive given for incident that occurred as congregation was holding Shabbat eve prayers; officer and bystander wounded

TUNIS, Tunisia — 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 Shabbat 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 only about 1,500 people. Jewish sites in Tunisia have been targeted in the past.
فيديو لمنفذ عملية لافايات بعدما سكب البنزين على جسده ثم حاول إفتكاك سلاح عون أمن مكلف بحراسة الكنيس اليهودي (Synagogue juive) و عندما وقع التصدي له باستعمال السلاح قام بإشعال النار في جسده مما تسبب في ضبابية بالمكان????????#buzznewstunisia ???????? #تونس #tunisie #tunisia #lafayette pic.twitter.com/mCI8mNyBJg
— أخبار تونس – Buzz News Tunisia (@buzznewstunisia) January 24, 2025
A national guardsman killed five people at the 2,600-year-old El-Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba after an annual pilgrimage in 2023. Later that year, anti-Israel 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.
Tunisia’s recent history was also marked by the self-immolation of a street vendor in 2010 in a protest linked to economic desperation, corruption and repression. Mohamed Bouazizi’s act unleashed mass protests that led to the ouster of Tunisia’s autocratic ruler and uprisings across the region known as the Arab Spring.