Palestinians celebrated the brutal murder of four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday, with revellers in the city of Rafah in Gaza handing out candies and carrying posters of the suspects. Hamas social media also circulated anti-Semitic cartoons praising the killers.

Hamas also said that the attack was motivated by revenge for the killing of a Palestinian bus driver, who was found hanged inside his vehicle on Sunday night. An autopsy report later revealed that the driver, Yusuf al-Ramouni, 32, had apparently committed suicide.

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The Jerusalem Post reported later Tuesday that three of the victims killed by two Palestinians wielding meat cleavers and a gun were United States citizens. Yochanan Danino, Israeli National Police Commissioner, told the newspaper that a preliminary investigation of the synagogue attack showed it was most probably an independent effort.

Another newspaper, the Times of Israel, cited witnesses as saying that the attackers were shouting "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is Great," when they stormed the synagogue and started creating a scene of bloody carnage.

The U.S. State Department identified the three American citizens killed Tuesday as Mosheh Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky and Cary William Levine. They were killed along with a British citizen when the assailants stormed the synagogue and began attacking people who were in their morning prayers.

Police said those killed were all immigrants to Israel and held dual citizenships. Twersky, the grandson of Boston rabbi Joseph Soloveichik, was the head of Jerusalem's Yeshivas Toras Moshe, a religious seminary for English-speaking students.

The London Telegraph later identified the Briton killed as Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68.

Eight other worshippers were injured - one of them one critically - before the assailants were killed in a gunbattle with police.

The attack was the deadliest in Jerusalem since 2008, when a Palestinian gunman shot eight people in a religious seminary school.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the attack as a "cruel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers." He vowed that Israel will "respond harshly" to the carnage.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with the prime minister after the assault and denounced the murders as an "act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence." He also called on Palestinian leaders to take serious steps to refrain from such incitement, and to condemn the attack "in the most powerful terms."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did condemn the attack, while at the same time calling on Israeli leaders to end "provocations" surrounding the sacred site.

President Barack Obama has also condemned the attack on innocent civilians in their moment of prayer.

"The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the victims and families of all those who were killed and injured in this horrific attack and in other recent violence," Obama said in a statement.

Israeli police have released the names of the assailants - Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal, who were said to be cousins from East Jerusalem.

wo police officers were among eight wounded in the gunbattle after the synagogue attack. Police were searching the area for other possible suspects.

TagsJerusalem, Synangogue, Palestinians, Benjamin Natanyahu