One of the victims killed during the vehicle and knife attack at a British synagogue was accidentally shot by a police officer, officials said Friday.
Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died from injuries sustained during the assault on Thursday morning at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, which has been declared a terrorist attack by the authorities.
The two who were killed were standing close together behind the synagogue door as worshipers “acted bravely to prevent the attacker from gaining entry,” the police said.
On Friday morning, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, said a pathologist had found that one of the victims who died had suffered “a wound consistent with a gunshot injury.”
He said in a statement that the perpetrator of the attack, Jihad al-Shamie, was not in possession of a firearm and that the only shots fired were from the armed police officers responding to the attack.
Mr. Watson said: “It follows therefore, that subject to further forensic examination, this injury may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end.”
The statement did not specify which deceased victim was believed to have been shot. Mr. al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, was also shot dead by police at the scene.
Mr. Watson said that one of the three surviving victims who were injured in the attack had also suffered a gunshot wound, which was not life-threatening, and was being treated in hospital.
The attack, which came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, has added to growing fears about the safety of Jews around the world amid a rising wave of antisemitism. British authorities declared it an act of terrorism.
The police have not formally commented on the attacker’s motives, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said in an address to the nation on Thursday night that the man had “attacked Jews because they are Jews.”
Mr. Starmer, whose wife is Jewish, said that while antisemitism was not new, “it is a hatred that is rising once again, and Britain must defeat it once again.” On Friday he visited the scene and was photographed meeting police officers.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, told the BBC on Friday morning that the attacker had arrived in Britain as a child with his family and had been granted British citizenship in 2006.
In a separate interview, with Times Radio, Ms. Mahmood said that the assailant “was not known to counterterror police.”
Mr. al-Shamie was not under investigation by the security services and had not been named as a “subject of interest” on their systems, but intelligence officials have not ruled out the possibility that a connection with other individuals on their radar could emerge.
His family’s home in Prestwich, a Manchester suburb about two miles from the scene of the attack, was being searched by officers on Friday, along with another house a short walk away from the synagogue.
The police said on Thursday that they had arrested three people on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism as part of their investigation. They did not name the suspects, who were being held in custody, but said that they were two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.
Extra patrols were being sent across Manchester to reassure communities, the police said, with a “high visibility presence” around synagogues.
Several international politicians expressed their horror at the events. The Palestinian ambassador to Britain, Husam Zomlot, offered his condolences to the victims and their families in a statement condemning the “heinous attack.”
“No one should ever feel unsafe in their home or at their place of worship,” he said. “Violence against civilians must be condemned without hesitation or exception.”
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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