Palestinian Gunman Attacks Jewish School In Gaza But Rice Says Halt IDF in Gaza

Israel tightens security after Jerusalem attack
JERUSALEM (Reuters)
Israel imposed a security clampdown on Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday to prevent violence after a Palestinian gunman killed eight students at one of the holy city’s most prominent Jewish religious schools.
Thousands of mourners poured into Jerusalem to take part in open-air funerals for the victims, aged 15 to 26. Police set up road blocks and the army tightened restrictions on Palestinian travel in and from the occupied West Bank for 36 hours.
The gunman, whose family in Arab East Jerusalem said he had once worked as a driver for the college, was shot dead after opening fire with an automatic rifle at students in the library. The Merkaz Harav seminary has long been an ideological base for the Jewish settler movement in the Palestinian territories.
Police named the attacker as Ala Abu Dhaim, a driver. It was the bloodiest attack on Israelis in two years and the first such bloodshed in four years in Jerusalem, whose Arab residents have open access to Jewish parts of the city and the rest of Israel.
Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, hailed the “heroic operation” but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
The attack was greeted with celebrations in Gaza, where an Israeli offensive that ended on Monday killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of them civilians.
The gunman’s home was decorated on Friday with the flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist groups. None had claimed responsibility for the attack, however.
Israel called Thursday’s shooting a “massacre” but said peace talks would continue with West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the attack.
CITY ON ALERT
Israel deployed thousands of police in Jerusalem, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, and limited Palestinian access to Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
Police feared violence would break out in the Old City, where Jews and Muslims gathered for prayers. The al-Aqsa mosque overlooks the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.
The shooting could complicate U.S. efforts to broker a statehood deal by the end of 2008. It followed a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who persuaded Abbas to return to talks after suspending them over Israel’s Gaza offensive.
Washington has pressed Israel to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank. Though the attacker did not come from there, the killing makes that less likely to happen soon.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, called on Abbas to do more to rein in militants.

“They have clear obligations to act against terrorist cells, to act against the infrastructure of terrorism,” he said.

“While we understand they have limitations on their capabilities today, we believe that they could be doing much more, and it is incumbent upon them to do so.”

Israel has yet to meet its own commitments under a long-stalled peace “road map” to halt all settlement activity and to remove Jewish outposts in the occupied West Bank.

President George W. Bush, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Germany, France, Russia and Britain condemned the killings. The United States accused Libya, backed by several other countries, of preventing the U.N. Security Council from condemning the assault as a “terrorist attack.”

A member of the Libyan delegation said the council should not speak about the Jerusalem attack while ignoring Gaza.
In addition to those killed at the seminary, 11 people were wounded. It was the highest Israeli death toll since April 17, 2006, when 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a suicide bombing during the Passover holiday in Tel Aviv.

Libya blocks condemnation of Jerusalem attack -US
Reuters
UNITED NATIONS, March 6 (Reuters) – The United States accused Libya on Thursday of preventing the Security Council from condemning as a “terrorist attack” a deadly assault on a Jewish school in Jerusalem, but Tripoli called for “balanced action.”
The United States had drafted a statement that was discussed at an emergency U.N. Security Council session called to debate an attack by a Palestinian gunman who killed at least eight people and wounded at least 10 more at an Israeli religious school.
“The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that took place in Jerusalem March 6, 2008 which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of Israeli civilians,” said the draft statement.
The U.S. delegation had hoped the 15-nation council would unanimously support the text but Libya, backed by several other council members, prevented its adoption.

Wildl Thing’s comment……..
Now one would think we would be upset as well with Lybia but I have to say that I am just as angry at Condi Rice at this…………check it out, nice huh! Not!

Report: Rice Ordered Olmert to Halt IDF in Gaza
IsraelNN.com)

American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally told the Olmert government that it must stop its counterterrorist operations in Gaza, according to the London Jewish Chronicle. “Rice came and told us that we had to stop the operation in Gaza,” an Israeli government minister told the newspaper. He added that the Security Cabinet decision to instruct the IDF to continue actions to eliminate rocket attacks “is meaningless and was made only for public consumption.”

Since the decision, the IDF has limited counterterrorist attacks to aerial strikes on rocket launching cells. The army withdrew ground troops less than two days before Secretary Rice arrived in Israel to pressure Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations with Israel. He suspended them in protest of the counterterrorist operations.