US, French diplomats commemorate Tunisia synagogue attack

Diplomats from the United States and France visited on Sunday the Ghriba synagogue on Tunisia’s Djerba island to commemorate a deadly attack there last year amid a Jewish pilgrimage hampered by security fears.

French Ambassador Anne Gueguen and Natasha Franceschi, the US deputy chief of mission in Tunisia, lit candles and placed flowers inside Africa’s oldest synagogue.

They both declined to be interviewed, and members of their teams said the event was too emotional for them to speak.

On May 9, 2023, a Tunisian policeman shot dead a colleague and took his ammunition before heading to the synagogue, where hundreds of people were taking part in the annual pilgrimage.

The assailant killed two more officers as well as two worshippers there.

After rumors that this year’s pilgrimage would be canceled altogether due to security concerns and as tensions soar over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, organizers had said the three-day event “will be limited.”

As the diplomats visited Djerba, only about a dozen Jewish pilgrims attended the festival, which started on Friday.

“When I see it empty like this, it hurts,” pilgrim Hayim Haddad said in tears on the first day of the pilgrimage.