Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques discusses with Jordan King developments of Palestinian issue

Israeli alert for fears of fresh attacks after Jerusalem operation

UNSC fails to issue statement denouncing Jerusalem attack

Official Israeli talk over possible negotiations with Syrian on Golan

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received a telephone call from Jordan's King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein. During the call, they discussed the latest developments in the Middle East particularly the development of the Palestinian issue, regional and international situations and bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries.

Israel was on alert and Gaza braced for reprisals on Friday as crowds mourned eight teenagers killed by a Palestinian gunman at a Jewish religious school in an attack claimed by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Residents of the impoverished Gaza Strip were bracing for punitive Israeli military strikes after the attack which shook the faltering peace talks and provoked strong condemnation from around the world.

Thousands gathered in Jerusalem for the funerals of the teenagers killed in the attack carried out by a Palestinian resident of occupied east Jerusalem, who sprayed automatic gunfire at the students before being gunned down by an army officer late on Thursday.

Police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of 25-year-old Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim of the Jabal al-Mukaber area, where a mourning tent draped in Palestinian and Hamas flags was set up.

The attack, the first in four years in Jerusalem, was claimed by a senior official of the Islamist movement, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist.

"Hamas is responsible for the attack. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades will officially claim the attack at the right moment," a Gaza official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the group's armed wing.

Thursday's attack came after a surge in violence that left more than 130 Palestinians dead in and around Hamas-run Gaza in eight days. Three Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed in the same period. The army sealed off the occupied West Bank and Israeli police declared a "general state of alert."

Israel's main ally, U.S. President George W. Bush, led a global chorus of outrage, but the UN Security Council failed to agree on a condemnation amid Libyan opposition.

The students -- most of them 15 or 16 years old and including one US citizen -- were shot dead at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, a theological school in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem. Another nine were wounded.

Thousands of people, many clad in the traditional black attire of Orthodox Jews, long curls hanging down from their kippas, attended an emotional funeral ceremony at the school Friday.

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.

Hamas earlier hailed the attack as "heroic" as hundreds of people poured into the streets of Gaza to celebrate the shootings on Thursday. But it also indicated it would consider a truce if Israel meets its conditions.

The White House on Friday denounced as "fairly disgusting" the celebrations in Gaza.

"This was a vicious attack; there is nothing that can explain away this kind of attack. But the most important thing is that the peace process continues and that the parties are committed to it," a spokesman said.

Immediately after the attack, the Lebanese Hezbollah Shiite group said it was carried out to avenge the death of its senior commander, Imad Mughnieh, assassinated in a Damascus bombing on February 12.

Moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced the strike. "We condemn all attacks against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli," his office quoted him as saying in a statement. Israel slammed the attack as aiming to end the chances for peace in the region and vowed to defend itself.

A senior government official stressed nonetheless that peace talks would continue. "Israel will maintain its policy of talking to moderates ... and at the same time fight the radicals of Hamas," the official told AFP.

In a rare move, the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- the Muslim world's biggest political bloc -- also condemned the Jerusalem killings, saying it abhorred "violence and terror."

Russia's foreign ministry joined in the condemnations but called for Israeli restraint. "Israel has the right, as with every other state, to defend the lives and the security of its citizens. At the same time, it is evident that innocent civilians must not become victims of the fight against terrorism," it added.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV reported that a new group called the Martyrs of Imad Mughnieh and Gaza participated in the armed attack carried out in Jerusalem on Thursday, leaving at least eight people killed and 35 others wounded.

This group is unknown previously, said the report. Shortly after the report, thick gunfire was heard in Beirut's southern suburb to celebrate the deadly attack.

Mughnieh, a senior commander of Hezbollah, was killed in a car bombing in a residential neighborhood of Syrian capital Damascus late on Feb. 12.

Hezbollah has blamed Israel for his assassination, and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah repeatedly vowed to retaliate, saying that the assassination of Mughnieh will lead to "eliminate Israel".

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday denied that Israel was engaged in truce talks with Hamas, but said it would have no reason to strike Gaza if there were no rocket fire from the territory amid Egyptian efforts to secure a broader truce deal after a bloody explosion of violence there.

"There is no deal, there are no negotiations, either direct or indirect," Olmert said at a press conference with visiting Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek.

"There is an unequivocal demand that hasn't changed, and if this demand is fulfilled, there will be no need for a ceasefire," he said.

"If the terror stops, if the Qassams stop landing on residents of Sderot and if Grads stop landing on Ashkelon... Israel will have no reason to fight the terror organizations there.... We will have no reason to retaliate." Olmert was referring to cities in southern Israel that have borne the brunt of rocket fire from Gaza militants.

"Israel has not asked Egypt to mediate with Hamas on a ceasefire. Egypt is not playing any role in negotiations with Hamas," he said. "The army has full freedom to act (in Gaza) at any given time... without any restraints." The comments contradicted statements from Egypt that Cairo, supported by the United States, has been working on a comprehensive deal between Israel and Hamas, which seized control of Gaza nearly nine months ago.

In a statement in Gaza, Hamas said it was working with the Egyptians to reach a ceasefire agreement.

"We appreciate what Egypt is undertaking," said Ismail Haniya, who was prime minister in the Hamas-led unity government which Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas fired in the wake of the Islamists' takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

Hamas "will help the Egyptian leadership to reach a reciprocal and simultaneous truce that will at the same time lead to the lifting of the blockade imposed on the Palestinian people", he said.

Israel's new settlements plan was not helpful to the peace process, a US official said Monday, before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks here with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Rice, who has discussed the settlements with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak twice since Sunday, would discuss the peace process and the settlements with Livni, her spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"Now, the announcement that we saw from the Israeli government, is it helpful to the process? No, it's not helpful to the process," McCormack told reporters.

"But what we need to keep focused on, it's essential that we keep focused on, is moving forward the political process as well as moving forward that road map implementation process," he said. The road map calls for creating a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel.

Rice, who visited Israel and the Palestinian territories last week to keep the peace process from being derailed by an upsurge in violence, was due to host talks later Monday with Livni.

Israel announced at the weekend plans to build hundreds of new housing units in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. The decision was denounced by Palestinian officials who said it would shatter efforts to re-launch the peace process that has been stagnant since it was revived in late November.

Jerusalem authorities said on Monday they planned to build a new Jewish settlement in the annexed eastern part of the city. Confusion surrounded claims of responsibility for the shooting at a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary that killed eight Israelis.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's military wing who normally provides details of the group's attacks, said Hamas Islamists were not taking credit for the deadliest attack in Jerusalem for years - at least yet.

The initial claim of the group's responsibility came when a person describing himself as a Hamas official telephoned Reuters.

The shooting attack had been greeted with celebrations in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, where an Israeli offensive in recent days killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of whom were identified as civilians.

"There may be a later announcement ... But we don't claim this honor yet," the Associated Press reported Obeida as saying.

"The Hamas movement announces its full responsibility for the Jerusalem operation. The movement will release the details at a later stage," the anonymous caller claming to be a Hamas official told the news agency.

Confusion over whether Hamas was responsible came as thousands of Israelis gathered this morning outside a bullet-scarred Jerusalem rabbinical seminary to join funeral processions for the victims killed last night by a Palestinian gunman while they studied in the library.

In memory of the dead students – one aged 26 and the rest between 15 and 19 years old – a rabbi recited Hebrew psalms line by line, which the crowd then repeated. People packed nearby balconies to observe the ceremony, after which the bodies were to be taken for burial.

An Israeli police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said today the gunman was from Jabel Mukaber, an east Jerusalem neighborhood where Palestinian residents hold Israeli ID cards giving them freedom of movement in Israel. The man worked as a driver, Rosenfeld said, but provided no further details.

The gunman is reported to have disguised himself as a Jewish religious student. Armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a pistol, he opened fire for several minutes at a crowd of 80 students gathered in a library for a prayer evening.

After prolonged gunfire the attacker was shot dead by an off-duty soldier and two undercover policemen. "The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood," said Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of the Zaka rescue service. "The students were in class at the time of the attack. The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood."

The killings were the first big attack in Jerusalem for four years and represent a dramatic escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rekindled last week by deadly clashes in Gaza. The number of Israeli casualties had dropped in recent months to its lowest level since the start of the second intifada, more than seven years ago.

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, called the attack "a defining moment". In Britain, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said it was "an arrow aimed at the heart of the peace process so recently revived". Later Gordon Brown, the prime minister, said in the same vein that the massacre was "an attempt to strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process".

The US president, George Bush, and the Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, also condemned the attack.

Though the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also condemned the killings, the security council did not. A member of the Libyan delegation to the UN said the council should not speak about the Jerusalem attack while ignoring the crisis in Gaza.

Hezbollah's Manar satellite TV station announced that a previously unknown group, the Martyrs of Imad Mughnieh and Gaza, was responsible for the attack, although the claim could not be verified.

In Gaza yesterday, Hamas issued a statement praising the attack. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said his group "blesses the heroic operation in Jerusalem, which was a natural reaction to the Zionist massacre" – a reference to the death of Palestinians in heavy fighting in Gaza last week.

Israel issued a security alert across the country and set up roadblocks in Jerusalem to track any accomplices of the attackers.

The attack came at 9 pm at the Marcaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe district of Jerusalem. The yeshiva, an important institution in Israel, trains students from the national religious school of Judaism, a key element in the settler movement.

In addition to those killed, at least six students were seriously hurt while others had lesser injuries, according to the ambulance service. There had been about 80 students in the room at the time. Television footage showed the injured rushed away on stretchers, and some time later ambulances began to remove dead bodies. Hundreds of armed police officers and at least 50 ambulances attended. The attack was the deadliest in Israel for almost two years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2004.

Large crowds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis gathered outside the building last night and began chanting "We want revenge", and "Death to the Arabs".

For the second time in two months, Libya on Thursday blocked the U.N. Security Council from condemning violence and unrest in the Middle East.

The move came after a gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain. Israeli defense officials said the attacker came from east Jerusalem, the predominantly Palestinian section of the city.

Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the obstruction undermines the council's effectiveness in the region.

"What happened today was clearly a terrorist act," he told reporters after the council's almost two-hour emergency session. "We regret that this makes it difficult for the council to contribute positively to developments in this region, but those who blocked this possibility bear responsibility for that."

The United States had proposed a press statement, which carries less weight than a formal resolution, condemning a day of violence that included not only the seminary attack but also a deadly ambush of an army patrol near Israel's border with Gaza. Palestinian militants set off a bomb, blowing up an Israeli army jeep and killing a soldier.

In closed-door discussion among the 15-nation council's diplomats, Libya insisted the statement should be "balanced" by including condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza, a Libyan U.N. representative said after the meeting.

Three other nations agreed with Libya, but most council members wanted to keep the issues separate, said council diplomats involved in the negotiations.

Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the council's president this month, suggested a compromise by including an expression of deep regret at the loss of civilian life in the conflicts so far, and said he regretted Libya would not go along.

In January, Libya blocked the council from expressing concern about the safety of people living along the chaotic Gaza-Egypt border. The council had negotiated for most of the week on how to word a statement originally proposed by Arab nations and initially opposed by the U.S.

Last Sunday, at the request of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, the council emerged from a five-hour emergency session to issue a press statement condemning the escalation of fighting in southern Israel and Gaza and urging Israelis and Palestinians "to immediately cease all acts of violence."

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Saturday said peace efforts with Israel must move forward despite an especially bloody spate of violence capped by a deadly attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.

Abbas also reiterated his support for Egypt's efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

"Despite all the circumstances we're living through and all the attacks we're experiencing, we insist on peace. There is no other path," Abbas said in a speech marking International Women's Day.

Israel has sent mixed signals since Thursday night's shooting, in which a Palestinian gunman burst into a prestigious Jerusalem seminary and killed eight students, many of whom were studying religious holy texts in the building's library. Officials have indicated a willingness to move ahead with peace talks with Abbas, launched last November at a U.S.-hosted summit in Annapolis, Md. The sides hope to reach a final agreement by the end of the year. The Egyptian-backed truce efforts remain more cloudy, especially if it turns out that Hamas was behind the seminary shooting.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel "remains committed to the Annapolis framework." But he said there were no decisions on when talks would resume.

"We believe in historic reconciliation with the Palestinians. One of the foundations of Annapolis was no tolerance of terrorism. The best way to move forward is for the Palestinian side to be a real partner, not only in talks, but in helping to fight this sort of hateful extremism we saw this week," he said.

The U.S. has said extremist violence should not be allowed to derail peace talks.

Earlier this week, Abbas suspended the talks to protest an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 120 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians. Israel launched the offensive to halt intensifying rocket fire from Gaza, which is controlled by the Hamas militant group. Abbas later backed down under heavy U.S. pressure.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said peace talks are expected to resume on Thursday with the arrival of U.S. Lt. Gen. William Fraser III for a joint meeting with Israelis and Palestinians. Fraser is supposed to monitor the sides' compliance with the "road map," a U.S.-backed peace plan. Regev said the Fraser meeting still was not definite.

Separately, Egypt, backed by the U.S., is exploring a truce deal between Israel and Hamas that would stop rocket fire on Israel in exchange for an end to Israeli attacks on militants and the resumption of trade and travel from Gaza, where border crossings have been closed since Hamas violently seized control of the coastal strip in June.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said his group seeks a simultaneous and reciprocal calm that is accompanied by actual measures on the ground to lift the closure on Gaza.

"So long as there is an assault, there will be resistance," he said. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad traveled from Gaza to Egypt last week to confer with senior Egyptian intelligence officials on a truce. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch also was in Egypt.

In his speech Saturday, Abbas called for a "calm" in Gaza and reiterated his support for the Egyptian efforts. "These brutal attacks (in Gaza) must stop and these rockets must stop, and Gaza's border crossings must open, all of them," he said.

Regev declined to discuss the Egyptian mediation efforts. But in a sign that Israel was preparing to resume contacts, Israel Radio reported that Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, would head to Egypt on Sunday to discuss the Gaza situation. Israeli defense officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.

The outlook could become clearer once Israel determines who was responsible for the attack. The shooter has been identified as a 25-year-old Palestinian man from east Jerusalem, but it remains unclear whether he acted alone or received support.

Relatives of the man, Alaa Abu Dheim, said he had been distraught over the violence in Gaza, and Hamas and Hezbollah flags hung outside the customary mourning tent.

Hamas radio had said Friday the militant group took responsibility, but later retracted the report. A previously unknown, Lebanese-based group, the "Martyrs of Imad Mughnieh" — after a senior Hezbollah commander killed in Syria last month — claimed responsibility, the Al-Manar satellite TV station reported. But the claim could not be independently confirmed. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for Mughnieh's assassination and vowed revenge.

Concerned about more violence, Israel slapped a closure on the West Bank over the weekend, barring most Palestinians from entering Israel. Military officials said it was not known when the closure would be lifted.