Jerusalem was in a state of high alert today as the eight students shot dead in an attack on a rabbinical seminary last night were buried.

Thousands of police officers were deployed across the city as funeral processions for the seven teenagers and a 26-year-old from the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva took place.

There was confusion this afternoon after Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement that controls the Gaza Strip, appeared to claim responsibility for the attack, before backtracking on earlier statements. Police said they were investigating several claims of responsibility.

In the city, thousands of people joined the processions, but elsewhere was quiet as residents feared further attacks and even a third intifada, after the first major attack in Jerusalem in nearly four years.

The mood of the marchers, with the families and friends of the dead at their centre, was generally subdued. But around the periphery of the processions there was resentment at the failure of Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, to protect his people.

Fears have been circulating in Jerusalem all week that Arab anger over Israel's recent operations in the Gaza Strip, which have left 120 Palestinians dead, would provoke reprisals.

This morning, many were convinced that last night's attack on the Yeshiva, in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem, would not be the last.

The seminary is very strongly associated with the settler movement, and many people from West Bank settlements had travelled to attend the funeral processions.

One of them, David Elias Hacohen, said: "Instead of attacking the settlers, blaming us and trying to evacuate us, the Government should focus on taking out these terrorists who murder the children of our country. The weak Prime Minister must understand that no peace deal is available and instead work harder on protecting his citizens."

Meanwhile, dozens gathered outside the house of Alaa Hisham Abu Dhein, the 25-year-old gunman. His home, in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, was adorned with a Palestinian flag, along with those of the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Dhein, thought to have been in his twenties, worked as a driver, and some locals said he was employed by the yeshiva.

His family said he was quiet and intensely religious, but was not a member of a militant group and had planned to get married in the summer.

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