(Adds Abu Ubaida, Israeli official, Hamas rally)

GAZA, March 7 (Reuters) - Hamas Islamists claimed responsibility for a shooting attack at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem that killed eight people, a Hamas official said on Friday.

"The Hamas movement announces its full responsibility for the Jerusalem operation. The movement will release the details at a later stage," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

An Israeli official, said the Jewish state could not independently confirm Hamas's claim, but said an Israeli investigation into the attack was still under way.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told Al Jazeera television the attack was "an honour we have not claimed yet," but did not deny the Islamist group's involvement in Thursday's attack.

During a rally of Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, loudspeakers proclaimed Hamas was behind the attack and identified the assailant as a 20-year-old Palestinian who had worked as a driver at the school.

Israel imposed a security clampdown on the holy city after Thursday's attack, the deadliest by Palestinians against Israelis since April 2006 and the first in Jerusalem in four years.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Avida Landau, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Richard Balmforth)

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