An injured Israeli youth is evacuated from the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem March 6, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in Israel that killed eight students and injured many others in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, a senior Hamas official said on Friday.

"The Hamas movement announces its full responsibility for the Jerusalem operation," the official was quoted by western media as saying.

Gunmen infiltrated into the religious school named Mercaz Harav Yeshiva and opened fire indiscriminately at nightfall Thursday.

On Thursday evening, an organization calling itself "Galilee Freedom Battalions – the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh" claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.

Israeli security forces across Israel were on the highest level of alert on Friday, setting up road blocks and tightening restrictions on Palestinian travel in and from the West Bank for 36 hours.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2008)