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The funeral of the four Jews who were killed in the shooting at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse has been held at Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery.

French foreign minister Alain Juppe was representing the French government at the ceremony. He was expected to meet President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Chapters of Psalms were read out at the beginning of the funeral which was attended by thousands of mourners, supporters and family members

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Gabriel and Arieh, aged three and six, and eight-year-old Myriam Monsonego, daughter of school headmaster Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego, will be laid to rest in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery.

Before the bodies were flown to Israel, authorities held a memorial ceremony at the school.

"He came here to study, and travelled back and forth between Toulouse and Bordeaux to help children with learning disabilities," said the widow of the murdered rabbi, who is pregnant and has a one-year-old girl. "He gave his all for this noble cause."

A brief religious ceremony took place on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport in Israel.

Israel's deputy foreign minister reacted to reports that the suspect in the shooting may be an Islamic extremist linked to al-Qaida. He condemned the "deep hatred by fanatic Islamists not only against Jews but against anyone different from them".

Esther Dominisini, director general of the National Insurance Institute (NII) in Israel, announced that she had resolved a controversy about the burial.

The institute initially opposed funding Rabbi Sandler's burial due to the fact that he was not an Israeli citizen.