Two French police officers have been wounded in a shoot-out at a house in Toulouse. In an operation linked to the killing of three children and a rabbi on Monday, officers have surrounded a house.

Inside is a 24-year-old suspect who claims to have links with al Qaeda.

Police are trying to persuade the man to give himself up. A second man thought to be the suspect’s brother has been arrested.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant told French media that the man had told negotiators he would give himself up “this afternoon”. The suspect threw a pistol from the house, Gueant added, but was still in possession of an Uzi machine gun, a Kalashnikov as well as other weapons.

He is reported by news agency Reuters to have told negotiators that he carried out the killing of three soldiers last week to punish the French army for its foreign military interventions and to draw attention to the plight of Palestinian children. Police believe the same gun that killed those soldiers, was also used in the attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday.

The four victims of that shooting were to be buried during a ceremony in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.