At least eight people were killed after a gunman infiltrated and attacked a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem on Thursday evening.
Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said the gunman entered the library and opened fire during an evening study session.
There were initially conflicting reports about the number of attackers, although police have confirmed it was a solitary shooter.
While police claimed responsibility for killing the attacker, a student named Yitzhak Dadon also claimed to have shot and killed the armed man.
"He came out of the library spraying automatic fire," Dadon told the Associated Press. "The terrorist came to the entrance and I shot him twice in the head."
The body of the eighth victim was not found until two hours after the shooting.
About nine students were injured and about three are very seriously wounded, Yoni Yagodovsky, the Director of the Department of Israeli Emergencies, told Newsnet. He said 50 ambulance teams were dispatched to the chaotic scene and that all of the injured had been safely transported to hospitals.
There were initial reports the murdered gunman was carrying explosives, but according to Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby, it was actually an ammunition belt.
There have been reports the killed culprit was a resident of East Jerusalem.
The well-known Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a centre for Jewish studies in the Kiryat Moshe quarter near the city's edge, is now surrounded by armed police officers and ambulances.
The school is being evacuated, according to the Jerusalem Post's Calev Ben-David.
"The situation is bad," Ben-David told Â鶹´«Ã½net on Thursday. "This is the leading yeshiva... in all of Israel. It's a famous landmark building, founded in the 1920s. The impact of this will be very deeply felt."
Ben-David said Mercaz Harav was considered by many to be the home of the Zionist movement, saying the concept of expanding Israeli control to the Palestinian territories first took hold there.
"The people that study here... have been among the most skeptical of coming to an agreement with the Palestinians," he said, noting many students believe in Israeli expansion, live in the disputed territories and carry weapons to protect themselves.
Lebanese television, which is controlled by Hezbollah, is reporting a group called the Galilee Freedom Battalion claimed responsibility for the attack although their claims have not been validated. The Palestinians' Hamas leadership did not outwardly claim responsibility, but sent a text message to reporters saying: "We bless this operation. It will not be the last."
Upon hearing the news, Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation and Palestinians celebrated in the streets.
The massacre came the same day Israel resumed tenuous U.S.-led peace talks with the Palestinians over their contentious territories. Earlier this week Israel led a two-day incursion into Gaza meant to track down militant members of the Palestinians' Hamas leadership. More than 100 Palestinians were killed.
In Israel this week to help broken the peace deal, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, something Middle East affairs expert Philip Wilcox believes to be imperative in order to move towards real peace.
"I think that should be the goal of the international community," said Wilcox, who said Iran seems to be fanning the flames of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict behind the scenes. "Hamas has few friends but it has developed a relationship with Iran. The Egyptians are trying to work with Hamas (for peace) but really need help from the United States and the international community to encourage this."
Wilcox told Newsnet that his organization's studies show the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would prefer two sovereign states with a shared Jerusalem over the continued violence that has plagued the region.
Thursday's massacre was particularly unsettling due to the notable time span since Jerusalem's last Palestinian attack. There were none in 2007, something many attribute to the security fence erected between Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Rice condemned the attack as an "act of terror and depravity."
With files from The Associated Press
