Jewish Ledger | March 23, 2012

A 23-year-old Frenchman who admitted to killing a young rabbi and four children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse died on Thursday after jumping from his apartment window during a police raid on his home.  He also took responsibility for the murder of three French paratroopers within the past two weeks.

The death of Mohammed Merah, a French national of Algerian descent who claimed to have links to al-Qaeda, culminated a 30-hour standoff with police, in which Merah first agreed to give himself up, but then reneged, telling French radio that he wished “to die with weapons” in his hands. Police entered his apartment at noon on Thursday and began a room-by-room search, at which point the gunman emerged from a bathroom firing his weapons.  According to French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, “At the end, Mohammed Merah jumped out a window with a weapon in his hand, still firing.  He was found dead on the ground.”  Two officers were wounded during the incident, neither seriously.

According to Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor responsible for overseeing antiterror investigations in France, Mehrah “expressed no regrets, saying only that he did not have the time to reach more victims.”

According to the New York Times, French authorities initially suspected both Merah and his brother Abdelkader, 29, known locally for his radical religious ideology. Police found explosives in Abdelkader’s car on Wednesday. They also tracked contact with Merah’s initial victim, a French soldier selling a motobike online, to his mother’s computer. As the standoff dragged on, police implored his mother to persuade Merah to surrender, but she refused to speak with him.

According to the Times, both his mother and brother were taken in for questioning.

In the aftermath of the massacre at the Ozar Hatorah day school, French President Nikolas Sarkozy met with Jewish and Muslim leaders, calling for restraint and solidarity.  “We must be united,” he said.  “We must yield neither to easy falsehoods nor to vengeance.”

On Wednesday, thousands of  — including French and Israeli dignitaries — gathered  in Jerusalem for the funeral in Jerusalem of the victims of the Ozar Hatorah massacre: Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, a teacher at the school, his two sons, Arye, 6, and Gavriel, 3, and Miriam Monsonego, 8, the daugther of the school’s principal and a cousin of Sandler’s wife.

The four were killed on Monday morning when an anonymous, black-clad gunman on a motorcycle stopped near Ozar Hatorah as students were entering around 8 a.m., and opened fire on them with an automatic rifle. He did not stop shooting until his weapon jammed, and then he replaced it with a revolver.


Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said the man “shot at everything that moved,” chasing down some of the children and even grabbing a little girl by the hair and executing her. Soon afterward the shooter got back onto his motorcycle, believed to be a Yamaha, and fled the scene. A school employee who gave his name as Elhanan told Israel Radio that, “The attacker knew exactly whom he was shooting at.”


After paying a shiva call to Eva Sandler, the wife of the slain rabbi and mother of the two slain boys, Israeli Prim minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “I saw the pain and sorrow of a young mother, nursing a child, who lost her husband and two children.  What barbaric cruelty could motivate someone to commit so inhuman and act.” He also visited the parents and siblings of Miriam Monsonego.

Among those eulogizing the victims was French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, who told those gathered that the whole of France was reeling in shock over the attack.  “Your pain is ours,” he said.

Following the attack, the New York Police Department (NYPD) dispatched extra patrols to more than 50 locations around New York City.
Speaking on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, President Richard Stone and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein said, “We are outraged at this savage act against schoolchildren who were waiting outside their school building at the beginning of the day. Not only did the shooter attack children at the entrance to the building but he also chased them inside…. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community of Toulouse and the entire Jewish community of France.”