 Story highlights Siege has lasted more than 24 hours 
 
 Police continue to negotiate with the suspect, who has been holed up for hours 
 
 President Obama offers condolences to the victims' families, Sarkozy's office says 
 
 Police believe Merah killed seven people, including a rabbi and Jewish children 
 
 Mohammed Merah, 23, suspected in seven recent killings, remained holed up Thursday in an apartment in the southern French city of Toulouse, more than 24 hours after hundreds of officers lay siege. Negotiations have continued all day but Merah reportedly said he would surrender at night "to be more discreet". An undated and non-datelined frame grab from a video broadcast March 21, 2012 by French national television station France 2, who they claim to show Mohamed Merah, the suspect in the killing of 3 paratroopers, 3 children and a rabbi in recent days in France. Police had been trying to get 24-year-old Mohamed Merah to turn himself over after he fired through the door at them while they tried to storm his apartment in the suburbs of Toulouse in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Police reinforcements had arrived at the scene at around 10 p.m. (5.00 p.m. EDT) and authorities switched off street lights in the street, signaling that action would begin soon. Merah, who has told police negotiators he was trained by al Qaeda in the lawless border area of Pakistan, said he killed three French soldiers last week and four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of French army involvement in Afghanistan. "He seemed to be very aware that a massive manhunt was under way for him," Kalondo said. Hours into the siege, French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke at a memorial service for the three paratroopers, calling their killing "a terrorist execution." Sarkozy's office said U.S. President Barack Obama had called his French counterpart to offer his condolences and praise the efforts of French police. SURVEILLANCE 
 
 Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Merah was a member of an ideological Islamic group in France but this organization was not involved in plotting any violence. He was sent back to France after Afghan police picked him up at a traffic stop and alerted international forces to his presence, Molins said. At one point, a handgun was thrown from the window of the apartment, but the minister said the suspect had other weapons, as well as a car containing more arms near his apartment. A French citizen of Algerian origin, Merah boasted to police negotiators he had brought France to its knees and said his only regret was not having been able to carry out his plans for more killings. He told police he is a "mujahideen" or Islamic warrior fighting to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed in conflict with Israel. Hollande has said he will pull them out by the end of this year while Sarkozy aims for the end of 2013. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad strongly rejected using his people as a justification for the French killings, calling them a "cowardly terrorist attack." "It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life," he said. Police tracked the suspect down via his brother's computer IP address, which was apparently used to respond to an ad posted by the first victim, Gueant said. In the attack at the private Jewish school Ozar Hatorah on Monday, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet and driving a motor scooter pulled up and shot a teacher and three children -- two of them the teacher's young sons -- in the head. Meanwhile, the bodies of the four victims in the school shooting arrived in Israel, where they were buried in Jerusalem. Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh and Gabriel, and Miriam Monsonego 
 
 France launched one of the biggest manhunts the country has ever seen following the deaths of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school on Monday.
– Conflicting reports out of Toulouse: Though USA Today reported earlier, by way of French TV, that a 24-year-old Muslim man suspected in a series of shootings had been arrested after a raid on an apartment, reports are now saying the building remains surrounded. CNN and Reuters report that some 300 police officers have ringed the building and are trying to draw Mohammad Merah out. After severing communication in late morning, he is apparently talking with police once again. A police rep had told the AP that police would bust their way in if he didn't turn himself in this afternoon as promised; they earlier evacuated the building. An Afghanistan prison warden tells Reuters that Merah was among those freed in a mass Taliban jail break. Another chilling revelation: Nicolas Sarkozy today told a Jewish group that the gunman "had a plan to kill again ... this morning." A police source confirmed that the suspect "told investigators this morning that he had decided to kill a soldier in Toulouse on Wednesday morning and had already identified the victim."