JERUSALEM — Revelers dancing and singing through the streets of Jerusalem during the holy city’s annual gay pride parade were left shrieking in pain and panic Thursday night, as an anti-gay extremist lunged into the march’s leaders and stabbed six people, Israeli police and witnesses said.
Police said the attacker, Yishai Schlissel, who was arrested at the scene for Thursday’s attack, had been released from prison just three weeks ago, after serving a sentence for stabbing several people at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in 2005.
Eli Bin of Israel’s emergency service said six young people were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously.
The gay pride parade was proceeding as planned with party music, Israeli flags and rainbow-clad marchers wending their way through the heart of the barricaded streets of central Jerusalem under a heavy police presence.
An Associated Press photographer saw the attacker enter the throng of people with his hand in his coat and within seconds raise a knife and begin stabbing people in the back. Police pounced on him and arrested him.
