Gunman kills 8 in Jerusalem Jewish college

By Alastair Macdonald and Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman killed eight people in a Jewish religious college in Jerusalem on Thursday, most of them students, and wounded about 10 others in the most lethal attack in Israel in two years.

The attacker was shot dead by an off-duty Israeli soldier.

"It was a slaughterhouse," said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service, after surveying the scene following five minutes of bloodshed at the Merkaz Harav seminary, one of the most prominent Jewish educational centers in the holy city.

Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said the lone gunman was killed by an off-duty army officer who lives nearby and ran to the school after hearing gunfire. A city official said the assailant carried documents identifying him as a resident of Arab East Jerusalem.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it was greeted with celebrations in the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli offensive in recent days killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of whom were identified as civilians.

Outside the seminary, young Orthodox Jews in traditional black costume chanted periodically "Death to Arabs!"

Shortly before the shooting, Egyptian officials ended inconclusive talks with leaders of Gaza's ruling Hamas Islamist movement, part of a U.S.-backed push for a truce between Gaza militants and Israel to halt a surge in violence.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli soldier was killed in a bomb attack in Gaza and four Gaza militants died in an air strike.