Israel tightens security after Jerusalem attack

Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire in a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem yesterday, killing 8

Israel imposed a security clampdown on Jerusalem and the West Bank today to prevent violence after a Palestinian gunman killed eight students at one of the holy city's most prominent Jewish religious schools. Thousands of mourners poured into Jerusalem to take part in open-air funerals for the victims, aged 15 to 26. Police set up road blocks and the army tightened restrictions on Palestinian travel in and from the occupied West Bank for 36 hours.

The gunman, whose family in Arab East Jerusalem said he had once worked as a driver for the college, was shot dead after opening fire with an automatic rifle at students in the library. The Merkaz Harav seminary has long been an ideological base for the Jewish settler movement in the Palestinian territories. Police named the attacker as Ala Abu Dhaim, a driver. It was the bloodiest attack on Israelis in two years and the first such bloodshed in four years in Jerusalem, whose Arab residents have open access to Jewish parts of the city and the rest of Israel.

Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, hailed the "heroic operation" but stopped short of claiming responsibility. The attack was greeted with celebrations in Gaza, where an Israeli offensive that ended on Monday killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of them civilians. The gunman's home was decorated yesterday with the flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist groups. None had claimed responsibility for the attack, however.

Israel called yesteray's shooting a "massacre" but said peace talks would continue with West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the attack. - Reuters