(CNN) — At least five people were killed and nine others injured in an attack on Tuesday near a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, according to the Tunisian Interior Ministry.
A security guard from the National Guard’s Marine Infantry Center killed a colleague “with a weapon and seized his ammunition,” the ministry said in a statement on Twitter.
The attacker then “tried to get close to the place of worship of El-Ghriba (the synagogue) and began to fire randomly at the security units deployed there, where they confronted him and shot him dead.”
Among the three victims are the other security guard and two visitors, according to the ministry. The count does not include the shooter, who was killed by security forces.
Tunisia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that a 30-year-old Tunisian and a 42-year-old Frenchman were among the dead.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Tunisian citizen killed in the attack had dual Israeli nationality. The ministry said it is “in contact with the relatives of the deceased and is willing to help.”
The French Foreign Ministry condemned the “heinous attack”, expressing its “concern and deep sadness”.
At the moment, the identity of the person who fired the shots, who was killed by the security forces, has not been released.
The attack occurred in the midst of a annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba which attracts hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel, Reuters reported.
The Ghriba is the oldest synagogue in Africa, a revered and iconic place in the heart of the island, according to Reuters. It was built on the site of a Jewish temple believed to date back almost 1,900 years.
Authorities did not identify the motive for the attack, but Islamist militants have already targeted the Djerba pilgrimage and have carried out other attacks in the country, according to Reuters.
One of the best known is the 2002 truck bomb attack by al Qaeda militants, which killed 21 Western tourists, leading to increased security at the synagogue in subsequent years.
— Celine Alkhaldi and Joseph Ataman of CNN and Reuters contributed to this report.
