By AFP
Jerusalem : Israel went on alert on Friday as crowds mourned eight teens killed by a Palestinian at a Jewish religious school in an attack claimed by Hamas that shook faltering peace talks.
Police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of the 25-year-old man, a resident of occupied east Jerusalem, who sprayed automatic gunfire at the students at a seminary in the city before being gunned down by security forces late on Thursday.
The army sealed off the occupied West Bank and Israeli police declared a “general state of alert.”
A senior official in the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza on Friday claimed the attack, saying that the group’s armed wing “will officially claim the attack at the right moment.”
Israel’s main ally, US President George W. Bush, led a global chorus of outrage, but the UN Security Council failed to agree on a condemnation amid Libyan opposition.
Eight students — most of them 15 or 16 years old — were shot dead at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, a theological school in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem. Another nine were wounded.
Thousands of people, many clad in the traditional black attire of Orthodox Jews, long curls hanging down from their kippas, attended an emotional funeral ceremony at the school Friday.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” a rabbi cried out, choking with emotion.
The gunman had entered the school with an AK47 assault rifle and headed for the library, where he opened fire at students gathered for a special evening prayer before being gunned down by law enforcement officers, police said.
The school is considered the centre of Israeli religious nationalism, where the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faith) settler movement was born after the 1967 Six Day War.
Police identified the gunman as Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, 25, of the Jabal al-Mukaber area of east Jerusalem, and said they were investigating several claims of responsibility for the first major attack in Jerusalem in nearly four years.
“Hamas is responsible for the attack. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades will officially claim the attack at the right moment,” a senior Hamas official in Gaza told AFP on condition of anonymity.
An Israeli official said in response that “if the attack was really carried out by Hamas, it will only strengthen our resolve to fight this organisation and other terror groups.”
Hamas, which refuses to recognise the Jewish state’s right to exist, had also claimed a suicide bombing the southern Israeli town of Dimona last month, which killed a woman.
Thursday’s attack came after a surge in violence that left more than 130 Palestinians dead in and around the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in eight days.
Three Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed in the same period. Hamas earlier hailed the attack as “heroic” as hundreds of people poured into the streets of Gaza to celebrate the shootings on Thursday. But it also indicated it would consider a truce if Israel meets its conditions.
“Any truce must be reciprocal and simultaneous and carry guarantees for an end to the Israeli aggression and blockade on Gaza,” Fawzi Barhum, a Hamas spokesman, told AFP.
Immediately after the attack, the Lebanese Hezbollah shiite group said it was carried out to avenge the death of its senior commander, Imad Mughnieh, assassinated in a Damascus bombing on Februaury 12. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced the strike.
“We condemn all attacks against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli,” his office quoted him as saying in a statement.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev insisted the Palestinian government should offer more than words and “do what needs to be done to fight terror.”
Israel slammed the attack as aiming to end the chances for peace in the region and vowed to defend itself.
A senior government official stressed nonetheless that peace talks would continue.
“Israel will maintain its policy of talking to moderates … and at the same time fight the radicals of Hamas,” the official told AFP.
In a telephone conversation with Abbas on Friday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged to continue working toward an end of the violence.
“They discussed efforts to arrive at a truce in the region,” a spokesman for Abbas said.