Gunman Opens Fire at Religious School in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM _ In the first terrorist attack in Jerusalem in more than three years, a Palestinian gunman burst into a yeshiva Thursday and sprayed automatic gunfire at students studying in the library, killing eight and wounding nine before he was shot dead, stoking tensions already heightened by a spike of violence in the Gaza Strip.
The attack cast a pall over efforts to restart suspended Middle East peace talks and complicated Egyptian attempts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
The shooter was not immediately identified, but Israeli media reports, citing security officials, said he had come from a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
In Gaza, where a five-day Israeli offensive against militants firing rockets at southern Israel left more than 120 Palestinians dead, Hamas praised the Jerusalem attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
“We bless the operation. It will not be the last,” Hamas said in a text message to reporters.
“This attack … came in reaction to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and the massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman. In the streets of Gaza militants fired in the air, drivers honked their horns, candy was given out, and mosque loudspeakers broadcast congratulatory messages.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television said that a previously unknown group called the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza claimed responsibility for the attack. The claim could not be immediately verified.
Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah commander, was killed last month by a car bomb in Syria. Hezbollah blamed Israel, which distanced itself from the bombing.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who on Wednesday persuaded Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks he had suspended after the Israeli offensive in Gaza, condemned the yeshiva attack as an “act of terror and depravity.” President Bush called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to convey his condolences.
Police and witnesses said the gunmen went into the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and entered the library, where he opened fire with an AK-47 rifle and pistol at students gathered to study. Students dived for cover as others fled the building.
Avraham Shenberger, a religious rescue worker who rushed to the scene from his home nearby, said he heard long bursts of machine gun fire and screams of terrified students.
“It was like target practice,” he said. “The place was full of blood, and there were horrible screams from the windows.”
Yitzhak Dadon, a student, said he shot the attacker twice in the head with his pistol. Police said the attacker was killed by an off-duty army officer who lives nearby and by two police detectives who arrived at the scene.
Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the library was a scene of carnage. “The chairs were all on the floor, books were covered with blood,” he said. “It was a real bloodbath in there.”
The Mercaz Harav yehiva may have been targeted because of its symbolic importance. Founded 80 years ago by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who is considered the father of religious Zionism, the prestigious yeshiva is a stronghold of religious nationalists and was the ideological birthplace of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank.
In his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas issued a statement condemning “all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli.”
Police in Jerusalem braced for possible unrest Friday in the wake of the attack and the violence in Gaza. Police commanders said they would flood the city with officers to maintain calm during Friday Muslim prayers at al-Aqsa mosque and as funerals are held for the slain students.
___
(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.