Fifth Victim Dies in Israel Terror Attack
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news. A fifth person dies in a terror attack in Israel, three Americans among the dead, brutally stabbed while praying inside a synagogue. Could the attack spark an all-out war? Plus more breaking news in Ferguson. CNN has new video tonight that appears to show police officer Darren Wilson in an angry confrontation with a Ferguson resident. And let it snow. Buffalo, New York, in the middle of a record snowstorm. Could they be under 70 inches by morning? Whoa. Is it Armageddon? Let's go OUTFRONT. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news. A fifth person dead in a terror attack in Israel, one of the worst in recent years, raising fears that the violence could lead to all-out war. Three Americans murdered in the attack today. The three men were rabbis with dual citizenship. A fourth, a British Israeli man, also murdered along with a policeman who was responding to the attack. We want to warn our viewers that the video you're about to see, which is the scene inside the synagogue, is very graphic. Two Palestinian men wielding butcher knives and a gun attacked and killed the men as they prayed at morning services in east synagogue. These pictures are horrible to show. We want people to understand what happened. These lives in prayer, disrupted in a gruesome and brutal and horrific way as they died. Police did kill the attackers. President Obama led the international outrage over this attack.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We condemn in the strongest terms these attacks. A number of people were wounded and four people were killed, including three American citizens. So this is a tragedy for both nations, Israel as well as the United States, and our hearts go out to the families.</s>BURNETT: Ben Wedeman begins our coverage tonight in Jerusalem. And, Ben, those images are impossible to truly comprehend. Those are -- those are environment that looks like the back of a church or a synagogue or a place so many people go, covered in blood from a knife attack. It is far from calm where you are tonight.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, indeed, Erin. It is very, very tense. In fact, just a little while ago we watched as many as 200 young Israelis in the street just below our bureau were chanting "Death to the Arabs" as this city boils over like we haven't seen since the last major attack, which was six years ago.</s>WEDEMAN (voice-over): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemning the deadly terror attack inside a Jerusalem synagogue.</s>BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (Through Translator): Today, in the middle of their morning prayers, while covered in prayer shawls, four rabbis were massacred, four Jews, innocent Jews.</s>WEDEMAN: Police say two Palestinian men armed with butcher knives and a pistol entered the building in an orthodox neighborhood in west Jerusalem. The assailants traveling from east Jerusalem, killing five men. Three Americans with dual citizenship, Aryeh Kupinsky, Kalman Levine, and Moshe Twersky, the son and grandson of renowned Boston rabbis. Also killed Abraham Goldberg, a British man with Israeli citizenship. And the police officer who was critically wounded at the scene and died later in hospital. Seven others were injured. This video shows Israeli soldiers trying to enter the synagogue to stop the attackers, who were then shot and killed by police. Israeli authorities calling this one of the deadliest terror attacks in the city in years.</s>NIR BARKAT, JERUSALEM MAYOR: What you saw today is slaughter of innocent people while they are praying in a synagogue. If the world doesn't unite against terrorism and give zero excuses for terrorism, this will haunt the world.</s>WEDEMAN: A spokesperson for Hamas quickly praising what happened as justifiable revenge for the death of a Palestinian bus driver found hanged in his bus Sunday. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack. Netanyahu promised to respond with a heavy hand.</s>NETANYAHU (Through Translator): I decided this evening to demolish the homes of the terrorists who committed this massacre and to accelerate the demolishment of the homes of the previous terrorists.</s>WEDEMAN: And of course the problem for Israeli authorities is that unlike in the past, these attackers don't seem to have any affiliation with any militant groups. The Israelis say they're going to destroy their homes. But beyond that, they're dealing with people who live within areas controlled by Israel -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: Ben Wedeman, thank you so much, live from Jerusalem tonight. Dore Gold is a senior policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is also a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Ambassador Gold, this was an attack at a synagogue, a place of worship, different than recent attacks in Israel, which were not in religious locations. Does this shock you?</s>DORE GOLD, SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER TO ISRAELI'S PRIME MINISTER: Well, to a large extent, what happened today in Jerusalem with the attack on the synagogue, with the murder of four rabbis, is somewhat reminiscent of events in the general region that we are living in, in the Middle East. You are seeing churches attacked and burned, you're seeing Shiite mosques also assaulted. And you're seeing clergy attacked elsewhere in the region. So it seems like the -- a pattern of thinking, the inspiration that exists among ISIS, Nusra Front and other groups nearby has -- began to penetrate part of the Palestinian society. We know, for example, that young people go to the Web site to look at YouTubes of what ISIS is doing, the mass murders they commit. I mean, look at this attack. Not only was it at a religious site. But the terrorists show up with an ax and with a butcher knife, and they use it as a weapon. Now what did that remind you of? It reminds you of Brits and Americans who've been beheaded in the Syrian desert.</s>BURNETT: When you look at the attack scene, and I want to warn viewers, this is a very graphic scene, a horrific thing to look at, I want to show it so people understand what happened. That is a butcher knife. It has blood on it. That is after this horrific attack today. This story was not a sudden suicide bombing. How do you fight against this new kind of terror? You can't just put a metal detector in the front of a synagogue and stop this sort of thing.</s>GOLD: When Mahmoud Abbas talks to the Palestinian people and says, he wants to avoid a situation where there is Jewish contamination of the Temple Mount, how can you even talk that way? How can you be a person who's addressed by Secretary Kerry as a man of peace and talk about Jews contaminating the Temple Mount? So first and foremost, the Palestinian leadership has to move back from this kind of language and it's being systematically used and it's affecting the minds of young people.</s>BURNETT: The language -- that language is horrible. But the Prime Minister Netanyahu today also said something that has upset some. He said look, he's going to destroy the homes of the people who are responsible for this horrific terror attack. That, of course, will hurt others who are innocent who may live in those homes. It is standard operating procedure for the Israeli government, I understand. But these attacks have been escalating. So what do you gain from destroying their homes?</s>GOLD: Well, you have to also understand the context from which all this is occurring. First of all, Israel is a country of law and everything that goes on in terms of our military operations is under the oversight of the Israeli Supreme Court but more importantly and perhaps specifically to your question, we have a problem where the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, frankly with the backing of Qatar and Iran, are incentivizing terrorism. If you want to get a -- let's say a salary for life, or for many years, if you engage in terrorism against Israelis, you'll be given that salary. You can sit in an Israeli prison, you'll get that money. And that money is coming from -- through the Palestinian Authority. So if you are incentivizing, we have to create a disincentive and that's exactly what this type of punishment tries to do. It's difficult, it's hard to hear about, but it's absolutely necessary, it's an emergency condition, and it works.</s>BURNETT: There were major celebrations in Gaza today following the attacks. Some Palestinians believe that the killings were justified and they believe that because they say that the killing of the rabbis was in response to a Palestinian bus driver that they say was lynched by Israeli Jews. Israel Police -- Israeli Police say that that man hung himself and it was suicide. Do you know that for sure?</s>GOLD: One hundred percent it was suicide. And you know something, the family was allowed to pick a pathologist who could look at the body and make his own determination. So there was Israeli pathologists who looked at that Palestinian body and there was a Palestinian pathologist, and everyone was in agreement that this was a suicide. This was not something caused by somebody shooting him, somebody dragging him out and choking him. This came about because of a suicide and there is just absolutely no question about it. But part -- what is part of this whole process of incitement, it's taking false rumors, spreading them, that have no basis. It's like saying Israel wants to undermine the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Come on. This has been an old myth thrown around since the times of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s.</s>BURNETT: All right. Dore Gold, thank you very much, Ambassador.</s>GOLD: Sure.</s>BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next, breaking news, all 50 states reported freezing temperatures today. None, though, are having a situation like Buffalo. Emergencies there across New York. How much snow could they have by morning? These numbers are stunning. And my next guess as Congress is about to vote on a bill that ISIS would love, that would empower them to terror attacks in America. The former CIA director Michael Hayden is OUTFRONT. And more breaking news, new video purportedly showing the officer who shot Michael Brown in a confrontation with a Ferguson resident -- another one.