Religion

4 Hostages Killed In Paris Kosher Market Attack

Four hostages were killed during a siege at a kosher market in Paris on Friday.

The gunman who stormed the Hyper Cacher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, a Jewish community in the city’s 12th arrondissement, was identified as 32-year-old Amedy Coulibaly. According to the Associated Press, a police official said he appears linked to Wednesday’s shooting at the offices of satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 people dead. He is also believed to have been responsible for the shooting death of a policewoman on a Paris roadside Thursday.

French President Francois Hollande said in a televised address that the seige at Hyper Cacher was an “anti-Semitic” attack. The Grand Synagogue in Paris has been closed for Shabbat for the first time since World War II, according to The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Wilner.

Shops in the area were ordered closed after Coulibaly opened fire on the market, declaring, “You know who I am,” the AP reports. Several hostages including at least one child hid in the building’s cold storage unit during the seige, according to the Washington Post.

As the hostage situation made news, #JeSuisJuif, a hashtag expressing solidarity with the Jewish population of France, began trending on Twitter.

Couliably was killed when police stormed the market hours later. Fifteen hostages were freed, with four in critical condition, according to Agence France-Presse. Among those wounded in the assault were two police officers.

“It’s war!” one woman reportedly screamed as she fled the scene with her daughter.

The FBI tweeted that French police are still searching for Couliably’s alleged accomplice, a woman named Hayet Boumddiene.

The situation at the market was unfolding at the same time a second standoff was taking place at a printing house in Dammartin-en-Goele, a small community near Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, the suspects accused of killing 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday, were both killed when they reportedly came out of the building shooting, prompting return fire from police.

Police stormed the Hyper Cacher moments later; earlier in the day, Coulibaly had allegedly threatened to kill the hostages in the market if police stormed the printing press where the brothers were located.

paris map
Locations of the grocery store, the standoff in Northern France, and the Charlie Hebdo offices

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