Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with French President Francois Hollande a short time ago (Friday), and was updated by the French president about the details of the attack on the kosher supermarket in Paris.

Hollande confirmed to Netanyahu that four hostages were killed at the Hypercasher supermarket, where an armed assailant had seized hostages. The gunman was killed as well.

Netanyahu asked Hollande to maintain a reinforced level of security at Jewish institutions in France.

“Israel offers you all the help that France needs,” Netanyahu said. “The international community must unite in action against extremist Islamic terrorists and against those who support them.”

The hostage-taker in the eastern Porte de Vincennes area of Paris was suspected of gunning down a policewoman in southern Paris Thursday and knew at least one of the terrorists who carried out the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine earlier this week.

France has seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitism in recent years, and it flared particularly in 2014 and during Operation Protective Edge, with violent protests in Paris. 

At the beginning of December there was a shocking robbery and rape attack committed against a young Jewish couple in Paris, which led French politicians to condemn the steep rise of anti-Semitism.

Weeks later, automatic gunfire was sprayed at the David Ben Ichay synagogue on Paris’s 3 Danjon Street. A similar incident occurred against a kosher restaurant in the French capital shortly thereafter.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)