“Answered prayers. All hostages are alive and well,” Abbott said.
Prayers answered.
All hostages are out alive and safe.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 16, 2022
Governor Abbott’s tweet was published shortly after a loud rumble occurred in the area, and gunshots were also reportedly heard coming from the Beth Israel congregation, according to media journalists in the area.
A man with a gun and explosives took a rabbi and three other people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville Saturday morning as a religious event was being held and live-streamed on Facebook.
The kidnapper was killed in a standoff with authorities that lasted about 11 hours with local, state and federal police, Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller said.
SWAT officers from the Colleyville Police Department, as well as officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI, initially responded to the scene at the Jewish synagogue.
During the confrontation, it was unclear to what extent the hijacker was armed. The suspect was wearing backpacks and had said he has explosives. The police did not know if it was true, but they acted as if it were true.
In an update just before 6:30 p.m., police said a male hostage was released, unharmed, shortly after 5 p.m. According to police, the man was reunited with his family. No further details were immediately released.
Police said FBI crisis negotiators were in constant contact with the kidnapper.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said the man, who has not been identified, had demanded to see his “sister,” who authorities say may not actually be related to him and who is currently in federal custody for “terrorist events” in Afghanistan.
“The man claimed that he and his sister will go to Jannah (Muslim belief in heaven) after seeing her,” the department said in a statement on Saturday.
The hostage situation in Texas comes as synagogues and Jewish institutions across the United States are on high alert after attacks like the one that killed a woman in Poway, California, in 2019 , and another that killed 11 people in Pittsburgh in 2018 .