MIDDLE EAST:EIGHT JEWISH students who were killed by a Palestinian gunman in an attack on Thursday night in Jerusalem were buried yesterday, but despite the shooting the unofficial message coming out of the office of prime minister Ehud Olmert was that talks with the Palestinians would continue next week.
Thousands attended an emotionally and politically charged funeral ceremony at the Merkaz Harav seminary where the attack took place and which is considered the flagship seminary of religious nationalism and the ideological wellspring of the settlement movement. Several rabbis who addressed the ceremony broke down as they spoke. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," one rabbi cried.
As of yesterday evening there was no clear claim of responsibility for the attack, in which the gunman walked into the religious seminary in a Jerusalem neighbourhood and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle in the library, killing eight students aged between 15 and 16. The assailant was shot dead by a member of the security forces who lived near the seminary and who rushed to the scene after hearing the shots.
Several unnamed Hamas officials were quoted as having claimed responsibility for the shooting yesterday, but Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, denied that the Islamic movement had carried out the attack. "There may be a later announcement . . . But we don't claim this honour yet," he said.
Another Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, called the attack "a normal response to the occupation" and a "normal response to the massacre" in Gaza - a reference to the Israeli military incursion into the coastal strip earlier this week in which more than 100 Palestinians were killed.
Police identified the attacker as Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, a 25-year-old resident of Arab East Jerusalem. The green flags of Hamas were evident at his parents home in the Jabel Mukaber neighbourhood where mourners gathered yesterday.
World leaders yesterday condemned the attack. President George Bush called the shooting "barbaric and vicious," while British prime minister Gordon Brown said the attack must not be allowed to "stop the peace process".
The White House urged Israel and the Palestinians to continue peace talks despite the attack. "The most important thing is that the peace process continue and that the parties are committed to it," a spokesman said.
Right-wing Israeli politicians demanded that Mr Olmert cut off all contacts with the Palestinians in the wake of the attack and intensify military action against Hamas.
Zevulun Orlev, a lawmaker for the hardline National Religious Party, said the "terrible slaughter" at the seminary was "the price of Israeli hesitance in the war against Hamas. Those who demonstrate weakness in the face of terror in Gaza pay the price in Jerusalem as well".
The government, however, is unlikely to respond with major military reprisals. Besides the fact that there has yet to be a clear claim of responsibility, the gunman was an East Jerusalem resident, which is an area under full Israeli control, unlike the West Bank and Gaza. After capturing the eastern part of the city during the 1967 War, Israel extended its sovereignty over the area in a move that has never been recognised by the international community.
Pressure from the right-wing opposition is unlikely to deter Mr Olmert from continuing talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who also condemned the attack. It was Mr Abbas, though, who last week suspended all contacts with Israel after more than 100 Palestinians were killed when Mr Olmert sent troops into Gaza in a bid to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets at towns and cities in Israel.
"These terrorists are trying to destroy the chances of peace but we certainly will continue the peace talks," foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said in reference to the shooting.
There has been some talk in recent days that a third Intifada uprising might be brewing. In addition to Thursday night's shooting, two Israeli municipal inspectors escaped serious injury a few days ago after an angry mob in East Jerusalem stoned their car. Shootings and stoning attacks, along with suicide bombings, characterised the second Intifada, which erupted in 2000 and continued for three years.
Israel police chief Dudi Cohen yesterday played down such talk, insisting that the shooting was an isolated incident.