A teacher dies and 2 people are wounded in a stabbing in a French school. Terrorism is suspected

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PARIS (AP) —

A man armed with a knife killed a teacher and wounded two others on Friday at a high school in northern France, an attack being investigated as potential terrorism.

Antiterror prosecutors said they were leading the investigation into the attack at the Gambetta high school in the city of Arras, some 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Paris.

Sliman Hamzi, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene said the suspected attacker, a former student at the school, shouted “Allahu Akbar” — God is great in Arabic.

Hamzi said he was alerted by another officer who was passing in front of the high school and called in. He “was shouting ‘someone is attacking with a knife,’” Hamzi said

Hamzi said he rushed to the school and saw the victim who died lying on the ground outside the school and the attacker being taken away.

“Colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn’t save the victim,” Hamzi said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the suspected attacker had been arrested. President Emmanuel Macron was heading to the scene along with the interior and education ministers, and the government asked authorities to heighten vigilance at all schools across France.

Such school attacks are rare in France. The motive was not immediately clear. It came amid heightened tensions around the world over Hamas’ weekend attack on southern Israel and Israel’s military response, which have killed hundreds of civilians on both sides. There have been calls in Muslim nations for mass protests after Friday prayers over Israel’s intense bombing campaign in Gaza.

Darmanin on Thursday ordered local authorities to ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations amid a rise in antisemitic acts since the Hamas attack.

France is estimated to have the world’s third-largest Jewish population after Israel and the U.S., and the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

The attack came almost three years after a teacher was beheaded outside a school in suburban Paris. Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, was murdered by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin who had become radicalized.

A vice president of France’s lower house of parliament, Naima Moutchou, said the National Assembly “expresses its solidarity and thoughts for the victims, their families and the educational community as we learn that a teacher has been killed and several others have been injured.″