Israel Hayom’s special correspondent to Toulouse reports from the city after Monday’s shooting attack at a Jewish school that left four dead • Jews from across France descend on Toulouse to support the Jewish community.

TOULOUSE - The Jews of Toulouse in southern France had so little to fear that six months ago they decided they did not need a guard at the entrance to the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school. “Everyone thought the security cameras and the iron door were enough,” a Jewish resident of the city told Israel Hayom on Monday. A little after 8 a.m. that day, their confidence turned out to be exaggerated, and gave way to deep shock.

An anonymous, black-clad gunman on a motorcycle stopped near the school as the students were entering, and opened fire on them with an automatic rifle. He did not stop shooting until his weapon jammed, 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, leaving behind four bodies, three of them children.

The dead are Rabbi Yonatan Sandler, 30, his two sons, Aryeh, 6, and Gavriel, 3, and Miriam Montesango, the 8-year-old daughter of the school’s principal. The four were standing on the sidewalk near the entrance to the school when the shooting started.

“I saw two bodies at the entrance to the school, including those of two small children,” said one eyewitness. “It was appalling.” In addition, a 17-year-old student was seriously wounded in the attack.

‘We ran to the basement’

Dozens of panicked parents rushed to the school after hearing of the shooting. One was Hagit Ben Shaul, whose son Jonas is a student there. “My sister called me and said she feared that all the children in the school had died,” Ben Shaul said. “She was hysterical and said she had seen my son. I rushed to the school, and when I got there I saw police and ambulances. We waited at the entrance to the school and saw the bodies lying there. They wouldn’t let us see our children. We only had phone contact with them. They were with several teachers who didn’t want them to come outside and see the bodies.”

“We were in the synagogue and suddenly we heard shooting,” Jonas, Ben Shaul’s son, said. “We went out the back door and ran with to the basement with the rabbi. I did not see the motorcyclist, just heard shots. All of my friends were in shock and couldn’t speak. I was afraid, but there were others who were even more afraid than me.”

At this stage, the motive for the attack remains unclear. Police believe that one of the guns used by the shooter was also used to murder three French soldiers, two of whom were Muslim, in two attacks that took place in Toulouse and nearby Montauban last week.

“A murderer is loose in our midst,” Pierre, a local bus driver, said on Monday. “Last week it was the paratroopers, then it was a soldier dressed in civilian clothing. They were all North African or black, and now, it’s the Jewish school. Until they find him, we will all live in fear.”

Meanwhile, Ozar Hatorah is attempting to recover from the shock. “School will not open tomorrow [Tuesday],” the school’s vice principal Chaim Sabag said on Monday night, while trying to organize accommodation for the many Jews who had arrived from around France as a show of solidarity with the community. “I am very concerned that many students will leave the school because parents have already told me they are afraid to send their children to a Jewish school in France.”

Following the incident, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant instructed the police to increase surveillance of Jewish schools. At 11:00 a.m. Tuesday all schools in France will observe a moment of silence in memory of the victims.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited the Ozar Hatorah school a few hours after the incident on Monday. “We must not retreat in the face of terror,” Sarkozy said. “This is a day of national tragedy. They weren’t just your children, but all of ours.” The president also revealed that about 120 police officers had been assigned to investigate the incident.

France’s Jewish community reacts

Understandably, members of the Jewish community in Toulouse had trouble understanding what had happened. “We’re not used to events like this. It’s absolutely terrifying what happened here,” Yosef Germain, a leading community activist, said on Monday.

“There isn’t a daily fear of anti-Semitism in the city,” said Germain, “although there is a fear in the back of our minds. We hear about incidents of anti-Semitism in France. Especially after what happened to Ilan Halimi [a 23-year-old French Jew, was kidnapped, tortured and killed] six years ago , we’ve been more on edge, but we’re not afraid to wear a kippah on the street or walk to the synagogue.”

About 30,000 Jews live in Toulouse. According to Noga Raviv, an Israeli who has been living in the city for eight years, until now, there has been no real fear. “Everyone here is in shock at the awful attack,” she said. “Jews are always walking around Toulouse in typical Jewish dress and nothing happens to them.”

Yonatan Tal, a frequent guest in the home of the murdered rabbi, painted a different picture. “It is not very safe to walk around wearing a kippah,” he said. “There have been times when people called me a dirty Jew; usually it was Muslims and foreigners from Africa. Most observant Jews prefer to wear a hat.”

“We have no hatred, anger or desire for revenge,” Marc Schulman, a resident of Toulouse, said. “There is fear, but above all there is the feeling of helplessness. It is not acceptable for children to wake up in the morning, go to school and be shot to death just for being Jewish. When such terrorist acts take place in places like Norway, we think, that’s awful, but it is far away. When it hits closer to home, it’s different. The state is helping us with security, but the problem with terrorist attacks is that no one can anticipate them.”

On Monday, a memorial ceremony was held in the Synagogue de Nazareth in central Paris for those killed in the attack. French President Nicholas Sarkozy took part in the ceremony, along with Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande.