Israel went on alert Friday as Hamas claimed responsibility for the shooting attack the previous evening in which a local gunman killed eight students at a Jewish religious school. Police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of the 25-year-old man, a resident of occupied east Jerusalem, who sprayed automatic gunfire at the students before being gunned down by security forces late Thursday. The army sealed off the occupied West Bank and Israeli police declared a “general state of alert.” Israeli warplanes also flew over the Lebanese capital Beirut. “Two Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace and flew over Beirut briefly before leaving the area,” a senior Lebanese security official said. “The Hamas movement announces its full responsibility for the Jerusalem operation,” a Hamas official told Reuters in Gaza. “The movement will release the details at a later stage,” he added. He spoke on condition of anonymity. Hamas flags and banners of other Islamist groups flew at the home of Ala Abu Dhaim after what proved to be a suicide mission. Eight students – most of them 15 or 16 years old – were shot dead at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, a theological school in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem. Another nine were wounded. The gunman had entered the school with an AK47 assault rifle and headed for the library, where he opened fire at students gathered for a special evening prayer before being gunned down by law enforcement officers, police said. The school is considered the centre of Israeli religious nationalism, where the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faith) settler movement was born after the 1967 Six-Day War. Earlier, Hezbollah television in Beirut claimed those responsible were members of a previously unknown group called “Phalange of Free Men of Galilee -- Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughnieh and Martyrs of Gaza.” Mughnieh was a top Hezbollah commander assassinated in a Damascus bombing on Feb. 12 who was wanted in a string of anti-Jewish attacks over the years. The Shiite movement blamed Israel, which denied any involvement. Thursday's attack came after a surge in violence that left more than 130 Palestinians dead in and around the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in eight days. Three Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed in the same period. __
