Israelis bury 8 students killed by Palestinian

Israelis bury 8 students killed by Palestinian

One of the victims was a 16-year-old American citizen.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of mourners gathered outside a bullet-scarred Jewish seminary and said farewell Friday to eight students killed by a Palestinian gunman. Israel slapped a closure on the West Bank and beefed up security around Jerusalem.

Masses of mourners marched in funeral processions after a rabbi who recited Hebrew psalms with the crowd repeating them after him.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas militants backtracked on an earlier claim of responsibility for the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years.

The attacker walked through the Mercaz Harav seminary’s main gate Thursday night and entered the library, where witnesses said some 80 students were gathered. He opened fire with an assault rifle and a pistol, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The gunman was shot and killed on the scene.

Israeli officials said the victims were between ages 15 and 19 except one, who was 26. They identified one of the victims as 16-year-old Avraham David Moses, an American citizen whose parents moved to Israel in the 1990s. The State Department confirmed an American was killed and another wounded in the attack but gave no other details.

The attack came on the heels of an Israeli offensive on Gaza that Palestinian officials say killed more than 120. The campaign targeted militants who have been barraging southern Israel with rockets. Four Israelis have also been killed in fighting since last week.

It was not immediately clear whether a militant group had orchestrated Thursday’s shooting, and two Israeli television stations said security officials believed the perpetrator could have acted alone.

Ibrahim Daher, head of Hamas’ al-Aqsa radio, said his station put out an earlier claim of responsibility prematurely. Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, confirmed the group was not taking credit for the attack — at least yet.

“There may be a later announcement ... But we don’t claim this honor yet,” he said.

The family of Alaa Abu Dheim, a 25-year-old from east Jerusalem, said he had carried out the attack on the seminary, a prestigious center of Jewish studies identified with the leadership of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank.

They said he was not a member of a militant group and described him as intensely religious. He had planned to get married in the summer, the family said.

Abu Dheim had been transfixed in recent days by the news of bloodshed in Gaza, said his sister, Iman Abu Dheim.

“He told me he wasn’t able to sleep because of the grief,” she said.

Abu Dheim’s family set up a mourning tent outside their home and hung green Hamas flags along with one yellow flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Family members said several relatives had already been taken for questioning by Israeli police.

Israeli defense officials said the gunman came from Jabel Mukaber in east Jerusalem, where Palestinian residents hold ID cards giving them freedom of movement in Israel, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.