Hundreds of Israeli Jews are expected to travel through Malta this weekend as they make the annual pilgrimage to the synagogue of El Ghriba (Arabic for “The Marvellous” or “The Strange”) on the Tunisian island of Djerba.

Security on the sleepy island of Djerba is expected to be stringent this weekend, considering that it has been only five years since a terrorist attack on the synagogue, the oldest on the African continent, claimed the lives of 21 people including 14 German tourists, six Tunisians and one Frenchman. The attack, carried out by an al-Qaeda North African group, left another 30 wounded.

Furthermore, last month’s suicide bombings in Algeria were carried out on the fifth anniversary of the Djerba attack and the so-called al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb group has claimed responsibility for both the Djerba and the recent Algerian bombings. The twin bombings at a police station and a government building, carried out by North Africa’s most active terrorist group, killed 30 and left more than 200 wounded.

Due to the fact that there are no direct air links between Israel and Tunisia, the expected 5,000 Jews of Tunisian descent, many of whom now reside in Israel, will make their way to Djerba via Malta, France and Turkey.

The al-Qaeda group has been held responsible for the 11 April 2002 bombing of the Djerba synagogue, which was carried out by Nawar Nizar, a 24-year-old al-Qaeda operative from the French city of Lyon. Nizar drove a natural gas truck fitted with explosives past security barriers and detonated the deadly cargo at the synagogue’s gates.

The attack was initially thought to have been an accident but consequent joint investigations by Germany, France and Tunisia showed the attack had been deliberate. An audiotape, purportedly from al-Qaeda, later claimed responsibility for the carnage, saying it had been intended to “send a message to Germany”.

The El Ghriba synagogue is located in the former Jewish village of Harah Sghira and, according to one tradition, was established by a group of Cohanim, or Jewish priests, from the Temple of Jerusalem, who supposedly settled on the island immediately after the destruction of the first temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586BC. The tradition holds that the refugees brought a door and a stone from the altar of the destroyed temple with them.

Before the institution of the State of Israel in 1948, Tunisia’s Jewish community numbered 100,000; today it counts just 2,000 who live mainly in Djerba and the capital Tunis.