The explosion of a fuel truck near a synagogue in Tunisia has killed at least five people, including tourists, and injured about 20 others. The truck, carrying cooking gas, jumped the pavement on the island of Djerba and hit a perimeter wall of the Ghriba synagogue - one of the oldest in Africa and a shrine that draws Jewish pilgrims from around the world. 

Tunisian officials and local Jewish leaders say the explosion was an accident. Israeli government officials described it as a deliberate anti-Semitic attack, but did not give evidence for that assertion. 

The explosion killed the truck's driver and at least four other people, identified by a local Jewish leader as German tourists. Some reports say a Tunisian policeman was also killed. The German Foreign Ministry could not confirm Germans are among the dead, but it says more than 20 Germans were injured. 

Djerba is a popular tourist destination off Tunisia's southeast coast. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.

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