Hamas claims responsibility for Jewish school shooting

Hamas on Friday claimed responsibility for a gun attack which killed eight Jewish students at a Jerusalem religious school the night before. "Hamas is responsible for the attack.

The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades will officially claim the attack at the right moment," a senior Hamas official in Gaza told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the group's armed wing. Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, told Al-Jazeera television the attack was "an honor we have not claimed yet," but did not deny the Islamist group's involvement in the attack.

During a rally of Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, loudspeakers proclaimed Hamas was behind the attack and identified the assailant as a 20-year-old Palestinian who had worked as a driver at the school. Eight students - most of them 15 or 16 years old - were killed when a Palestinian, a resident of Occupied East Jerusalem, entered the school and sprayed automatic gunfire before being gunned down by security forces late on Thursday.