A father and his two young sons aged six and three were shot dead when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish school in France in an apparently racist attack.Another child, aged between eight and 10, was also killed outside the Ozar Hatorah college in the south-west city of Toulouse, and a 17-year-old girl left seriously injured.
Police are hunting a “lone wolf” assassin, believed to be linked to two other shootings in the past fortnight that killed three soldiers from black or north African backgrounds.
Witnesses today described how the gunman drove up on a black scooter wearing a black crash helmet as the children gathered at the school gates ahead of the start of classes.
He dismounted and started shooting, hitting the 30-year-old rabbi and his two children. When his first weapon misfired, he produced a second gun and continued firing. “He shot ateverything he had in front of him, children and adults,” prosecutor Michel Valet said. “The children were chased inside the school.”
At least three people were also wounded in the attack, including the 17-year-old daughter of the school’s headmaster, who suffered serious injuries. The school, behind a high white wall with few external markings, was cordoned off by police, who then escorted other children outside. One officer held a distraught girl, her face in her hands. A mother and son were seen walking away from the site, their faces visibly pained. Within an hour, search helicopters could be seen flying over the city hunting for the gunman.
The French interior minister Claude Guéant immediately ordered security to be stepped up at all Jewish schools in France and President Nicolas Sarkozy cancelled his official engagements to fly to the city to visit the school and meet local officials.
He called the shootings “abominable” and a “frightening tragedy”.
The country’s Chief Rabbi, Gilles Bernheim, said news of the attack had left him “shell shocked”. He cancelled his engagements to travel to the school to offer support to teachers and families.
Source: London Evening Standard
President Nicolas Sarkozy speaks in front of the "Ozar Hatorah" Jewish school, on March 19, 2012 in Toulouse, southwestern France, where four people (three of them children), were killed and two seriously wounded when a gunman opened fire.Israel led world condemnation of the shooting of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in France on Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it "despicable murder."
Children aged three, six and 10, and a 30-year-old religious education teacher were shot dead as they arrived for classes at the Ozar Hatorah school in the southern city of Toulouse.
"In France today there was a despicable murder of Jews, including small children," Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud party.
"It is too early to determine exactly what the background to the murderous act was, but we certainly cannot rule out the option that it was motivated by violent and murderous anti-Semitism."
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was "deeply shocked" over the incident, a statement from his office said.
"Only a person possessing demonic evil could conduct such a terrible murder of small children at a school," it quoted him as saying, while parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin said the attack was against Jews and Israel and as such should alert the international community.
The dead teacher was named by a relative as Jonathan Sandler, originally from Jerusalem, who had moved to France last year.
Source: YNetNews
