Greater Manchester Police Chief Stephen Watson said a forensic examination has provisionally determined that the victim had “a wound consistent with a gunshot injury”. He said the attacker did not have a gun and that the only shots fired were by police.

“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,” Watson said.

Police said local residents Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died in the attack on Thursday 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.

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.

Attacker was not known to police

Police identified the attacker 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. Al-Shamie translates into English as “the Syrian”, and authorities are unsure whether that is his birth name.

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.

Mahmood said “it’s too early to say” whether the attacker acted alone or was part of a cell.

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.

Police said extra officers would be on the streets of Manchester on Friday and through the weekend to reassure the community.

Recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK have risen sharply since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas in Gaza, according to Community Security Trust, an advocacy group for British Jews. More than 1500 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.

Calls for pro-Palestinian protests to be cancelled

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”.

Some politicians and religious leaders claimed pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which have been held regularly since the war in Gaza began, had played a role in spreading hatred of Jews. Some say chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” incite violence. Others, including Jews who support the protests, say they want a ceasefire, an end to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Mirvis, the chief rabbi, urged authorities to “get a grip on these demonstrations. They are dangerous”.

“You cannot separate the words on our streets, the actions of people in this way, and what inevitably results, which was yesterday’s terrorist attack,” he told the BBC.

Mahmood, the home secretary, said 40 people were arrested on Thursday evening at protests that were unrelated to the synagogue attack and were organised in response to the Israeli navy’s interception of a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

She said it was “dishonorable” that the protests had not been cancelled after the Manchester attack.

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.