Deadly shooting at French Jewish school

At least four people, including three children, have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in the southwest French city of Toulouse, officials say.

Monday, March 19, 2012
French police are hunting for the gunman, who witnesses said was riding a black scooter. Net Photo.

At least four people, including three children, have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in the southwest French city of Toulouse, officials say.Monday’s incident occurred as children and their parents were arriving at the Ozar Hatorah school, in the northeast of the city, for the start of the school day.The shooter drove away on a scooter, a national police officer said.Patrick Rouimi, the father of a child at the school, told AFP that a man opened fire on a group of people standing at a spot where children were picked up for school."He shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school,” Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, told journalists.The daughter of the school’s director was seriously injured in the attack, said Charles Ben Semoun, a parent of another child in the school.Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said that one rabbi was also killed in the shooting. Claude Gueant, the French interior minister, has ordered security to be tightened around all Jewish schools in France following Monday’s attack.French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his education minister and interior minister are travelling to Toulouse.‘Horrified’Gilles Bernheim, the grand rabbi of France, who is also on his way to the city, said he was "horrified” and "stunned” by what had happened. Israel’s foreign ministry declared itself "horrified” by the attack."We are horrified by this attack and we trust the French authorities to shed full light on this tragedy and bring the perpetrators of these murders to justice,” Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson, told AFP.Police in southwestern France launched a major manhunt last week after the killing of three paratroopers and the wounding of another in two separate, but connected incidents.