A Talmudic school located in the Kyriat Moshe neighborhood in Jerusalem was the target of a bloody attack on Thursday night that claimed the lives of eight people and left at least 10 others injured.

The Israeli army said on Friday that it had sealed off the occupied West Bank in the wake of the tragedy. Israel has imposed a security clampdown on Jerusalem and the West Bank.
 
  
The move came hours after a Palestinian from occupied and annexed east Jerusalem entered the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem and started firing. 

Witnesses claim that over 10 arrests were made over the incident. 

FRANCE 24's international correspondent Rob Parsons explains a possible reason this particular yeshiva was targeted: "It is closely linked with the West Bank settlement movement.  Mosques in the area are celebrating, not mourning the dead." 

     
Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said a lone gunman infiltrated the school, pulled out an automatic weapon and opened fire in all directions. The shooter was killed by an off-duty Israeli army officer who lives nearby and ran to the school after hearing gunfire. According to the Israeli media the attacker was a resident of East Jerusalem.

In Beirut, Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said that a previously unknown group, "Phalange of Free Men of Galilee - Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughnieh and Martyrs of Gaza," claimed responsibility for the attack. The veracity of the claim was not confirmed.

The Shia television did not give any detail on the group, which bears the name of a top Hezbollah commander assassinated in Damascus on Feb 12. The organization blamed Israel for his death, but Israel denied any role in the killing.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned the attack as did the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European leaders and American President George W. Bush.

The United Nations Security Council called an emergency security meeting Thursday night but it failed to agree on a condemnation of the attack because of Libyan opposition, the US and Israeli ambassadors said.

Abou Zouhri, a Hamas spokesman, described the attack as “heroic” and called it a response to Israel’s “crimes.”  Rajaa Abu Dagaa, a France 24 correspondent in Gaza, confirmed reports that some Palestinians were spotted celebrating the attack in the Gaza strip.

Israel:  peace talks to continue

 
On the Israeli side, a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry denounced the attack as the work of "terrorists killing chances for peace."

Avi Pazner, an Israeli spokesman told FRANCE 24: "An investigation is underway. We'll find those who are behind this attack and will punish them very severely."

After the attack, Israeli Security forces searched the area to determine whether the shooter had accomplices.

“A helicopter is flying over the area, possibly looking for a third man,” FRANCE 24 correspondent Guillaume Auda said. “Information is slow to come and tension is extreme.” Tens of emergency vehicles arrived on the scene to evacuate the wounded while police cars went over the city blasting their horns.

Marc de Chalvron, a FRANCE 24 correspondent in Jerusalem, reported that "two armed men walked into a yeshiva - a Talmudic school - and started to shoot at the crowd on the ground floor around 7:30pm."
 

According to a witness interviewed by Guillaume Auda, the two men walked into the school wearing costumes.

Israel completed on Monday a deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip against militants who fire rockets into its territory. Over 80 Palestinians, among them women and children, were killed in the clashes.