Mystery surrounds role of Hamas in attack on Jerusalem seminary

(MOHAMMED SABER/EPA)

Did Hamas order the killing of eight Israeli yeshiva students at their seminary library in Jerusalem? There was continued confusion last night over who was behind Thursday's shooting, following reports that the Palestinian group had claimed responsibility. Reuters news agency quoted an anonymous Hamas source as saying the Islamic faction was responsible.

The unnamed official reportedly declared: "The Hamas movement announces its full responsibility for the Jerusalem operation. The movement will release the details at a later stage."

But hours later, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing in Gaza, Abu Ubaida, told Al Jazeera television the attack was "an honour we have not claimed yet". The ambiguity was reminiscent of the initial confusion surrounding a suicide bombing last month which killed an elderly woman in the southern Israeli town of Dimona. An initial report that Hamas was claiming responsibility was at first denied, then publicly substantiated a day later.

Thursday night's attack was the worst in Jerusalem since a suicide bomber killed eight people in February 2004. But while Israel has not publicly blamed Hamas for the massacre at the yeshiva, it seized on the group's unstinting praise for the operation as proof that the faction was "not only the enemy of Israel but of all of humanity".

One of the shooting victims was 26, three others were in their late teens and four more were 15 or 16. After a collective mourning ceremony at the yeshiva yesterday morning, the families of the dead accompanied the bodies to individual funerals in Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank settlements from which three of them came.

While confirming that the gunman came from East Jerusalem, Israeli officials did not explicitly say that the perpetrator was Alaa Abu Dheim, 25. Dheim, from the village of Jaber Mukaber in the east of the city, is believed to have worked for a transport company. His family told the Associated Press news agency that he had carried out the attack on the seminary and described him as intensely religious.

Abu Dheim's sister, Iman, said he had been transfixed in recent days by the news of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip. More than 100 Palestinians – about half of them civilians – died in last weekend's Israeli incursion aimed at curbing Hamas rocket attacks. "He told me he wasn't able to sleep because of the grief," she added.

Yesterday, many houses in Jaber Mukaber, including that of Abu Dheim's father, an engineer and land dealer, had the flags of Hamas and Hizbollah and the Palestinian national flag fluttering from their rooftops. But while the dead man's family were receiving condolences from mourners, they refused to talk to visiting journalists.

Hizbollah's satellite television station Al-Manar reported that a previously unknown group called the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh was responsible for the yeshiva atrocity. However, the claim could not be verified and it was not clear that the group even existed.

Either way, it was clear that Thursday's killings, by a lone gunman armed with a pistol and a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle, were planned with considerable attention to detail. The perpetrator clearly knew where the most yeshiva students would be congregated, and probably that a large number had gathered for celebrations on the eve of the Jewish festival of Purim.

In the aftermath of the killings. thousands of Palestinians came out on to the streets of Gaza to celebrate, firing gunshots into the air. A Hamas message –"this is God's vengeance" – was transmitted on loudspeakers, presumably referring to the Israeli offensive in Gaza which ended on Monday, having killed more than 120 Palestinians – half of them civilians.

Avi Dichter, the Israeli Interior Minister, told mourners at yesterday's funerals that Arabs in East Jerusalem should be expelled to the West Bank if found to be involved in militant activity.

A police chief, Dudi Cohen, said the shooting was especially serious because the suspect was from East Jerusalem and held an Israeli identification card.