Police killed a man who set himself on fire in front of the Grand Synagogue in Tunis, officials said.
A police officer and a passer-by suffered burns in the incident.
The man started the fire after sundown on Friday, around the time the synagogue holds Sabbath prayers.
The interior ministry said in a statement that the man advanced toward a law enforcement officer while ablaze, and a second officer opened fire to protect his colleague.
The officer was hospitalised with burns, as was a passer-by, the statement said.
The ministry did not release the man’s identity or a potential motive for his act, saying only that he had unspecified psychiatric disorders.
Tunisia was historically home to a large Jewish population, now estimated to number about 1,500 people. Jewish sites in Tunisia have been targeted in the past.
A national guardsman killed five people at the 2,600-year-old El-Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba after an annual pilgrimage in 2023.
Later that year, pro-Palestinian protesters vandalised a historic synagogue and sanctuary in the southern town of El Hamma. And a garden was set ablaze last year outside the synagogue in the coastal city of Sfax.
Tunisia’s recent history was also marked by the self-immolation of a street vendor in 2010 in a protest linked to economic desperation, corruption and repression.
Mohamed Bouazizi’s act unleashed mass protests that led to the removal of Tunisia’s autocratic ruler and uprisings across the region known as the Arab Spring.
