The Grande Synagogue in Tunis. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Police in Tunis overpowered a knife-wielding assailant who attacked a security patrol outside the city’s historic synagogue on Tuesday.

The 45-year-old man tried to stab a group of police officers standing guard at the Grande Synagogue on Avenue de La Liberté in the Tunisian capital — an imposing structure opened in 1933 that is no longer in regular use by the 1,000 Jews who live in the North African country.

Local news outlets quoted witnesses saying that the man was shouting anti-Israel slogans. The man is now in the custody of the anti-terrorism department of the Tunisian police.

Additional police reinforcements were deployed outside the synagogue following the incident.