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Israel’s “hearts are with the victims, their families and the American people,” the Israeli premier stated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the deadly shooting in Texas on Sunday which claimed the lives of 27 victims, saying he was “horrified by the savagery in Texas.”
A man dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle, identified as Devin Kelley, opened fire inside a church in Sutherland Springs, a small South Texas community on Sunday, killing 27 people and wounding about 20 others in what the governor called the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history. The dead ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.
Kelley, a white man in his 20s, lived in a San Antonio suburb and didn’t appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups. Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before Sunday’s attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon.
Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for allegedly assaulting his spouse and child, and was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement after a 2012 court-martial. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.
Pure Evil
Governor Greg Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
“There are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed,” Abbott said. “Our hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those who’ve lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities.”
Among those killed was the church pastor’s 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message.
“We lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends,” she wrote.
President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an “act of evil” and said he was monitoring the situation.
Until Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas had been a 1991 attack in Killeen, when a mentally disturbed man crashed his pickup truck through a restaurant window at lunchtime and started shooting people, killing 23 and injuring more than 20 others.
The University of Texas was the site of one of the most infamous mass shootings in modern American history, when US Marine sniper Charles Whitman climbed the Austin campus’ clock tower in 1966 and began firing on stunned people below, killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others. He had killed his wife and mother before heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001.
By: United with Israel Staff and AP
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