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JERUSALEM: A Palestinian gunman opened fire inside a Jewish
religious school in Jerusalem late Thursday, killing eight teens in
an attack that threatened to blow off peace efforts amid
ever-escalating violence.
Eight students at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in
predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem were shot dead and another nine
were wounded when a Palestinian from east Jerusalem entered the
building and started shooting, police said.
“The terrorist arrived with a packet in his
hand, got out a weapon and started firing, Aharon Franco, head of
Jerusalem district police, told reporters on the scene. “The
attacker was shot dead by law enforcement forces.”
School Head Rabbi Haim Katz, told AFP that all
the victims were between 15 and 16 years old.
Ambulances rushed to the school while
helicopters circled in the air after the shooting, the first major
attack in Jerusalem since February 2004, when a suicide bomber
killed eight people and himself aboard a bus.
The Jerusalem attack came after more than a week
of escalated Israeli-Palestinian violence in and around the Hamas-run
Gaza Strip, where more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in
eight days. Three Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed
in the same period.
It also came as efforts gathered speed in Egypt
to broke a truce in the escalating bloodshed between Israelis and
Palestinians.
Israel slammed the attack as aiming to end the
chances for peace in the region.
“The terrorists attack a school and innocent
people,” foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said in Israel’s
first reaction to the attack. “They are trying to kill the chances
for peace.”
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas also slammed
the strike.
“We condemn all attacks against civilians, be
they Palestinian or Israeli,” his office quoted him as saying in a
statement.
But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the
attack was “heroic” and is just a normal response to the crimes
of the occupier and its murder of civilians. Another spokesman,
Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on the Israeli government and its
deadly military strikes in the impoverished territory, adding that,
“we have warned before about the responsibility of the escalation
in Gaza and warned of Palestinian anger.”
Israel’s main ally President George W. Bush
assured Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the United States
stands with Israel after the “barbaric and vicious attack”, and
the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting but the 15-member
body failed to agree on a condemnation because of Libyan opposition,
the US and Israeli ambassadors said.
-- AFP
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