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Fifteen die in a day of extraordinary violence that spills over into today.
©Associated Press
August 5, 2002
JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bus in northern Israel during the morning rush hour Sunday, killing himself and nine passengers on a day punctuated by violence from the rolling hills of Galilee to Jerusalem's Old City to the Mediterranean beachfront.
The militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the bus bombing, which left charred remains -- including a child's drawing of two hearts in crayon -- across a highway. The attack, near the town of Tsfat, was the militant group's second deadly bombing in five days.
On Sunday, 15 people were killed and dozens wounded in two bombings and four shootings. Early today, four more people were killed in two shootings.
Israel's military clampdown on the West Bank has kept many Palestinians confined to their homes for most of the past six weeks, but militants continue to elude the troops to carry out attacks.
President Bush said he was "distressed" to learn of the bus bombing. "There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process," Bush said as he began a daybreak golf game with his father in Kennebunkport, Maine.
The Israeli government said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who turned 73 on Sunday, bore ultimate responsibility for not reining in militants during the 22 months of Mideast fighting.
"This Palestinian terror must be uprooted, and Israel will not relent," said David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the bombing, but also accused Sharon of "war crimes" for the Israeli army's mass detentions, home demolitions and curfews imposed on Palestinians.
A spokesman for Sharon said Sunday that the new attacks scuttled plans for talks planned this week with the Palestinians on security and easing hardships in West Bank cities under curfew.
"What have you got to talk (about) with a Palestinian leadership that continues to harbor and support terrorist activity," asked spokesman Raanan Gissin.
Hamas said the bus bombing was the second retaliatory strike for Israel's July 22 air strike that killed a senior Hamas leader, Salah Shehada, and 14 others in Gaza City. Hamas also carried out a Wednesday bombing at Jerusalem's Hebrew University that killed seven, including five Americans.
Hamas has vowed to kill 100 Israelis for every one of its leaders assassinated by Israel; other Palestinian groups vowed to join in.
About 1,500 people celebrated the bus bombing in Gaza City late Sunday, passing out sweets and praying near Shehada's destroyed house, where militants shouting over loudspeakers vowed to "avenge every drop of his blood."
Hamas, in a statement Sunday, vowed to continue its attacks until all Jews leave Israel. "We decided to target you everywhere," according to the statement released by the military wing, Ez Eldim Qassam. "In your universities, schools, associations, markets and any place you gather. Your army did not leave any other choice for us."
Three hours after Sunday's bus bombing, a Palestinian attacker opened fire just outside the stone walls of Jerusalem's Old City, sparking a gun battle with police that left three dead.
The Palestinian gunman used a pistol to fire at close range on a truck belonging to Israel's main phone company, Bezeq. A security guard was killed and the driver was injured, police said.
Seconds later, Israeli police began firing. The gunman was killed by police, and an Arab bystander was hit and killed by crossfire, Israeli officials said. More than a dozen people were hurt, most of them Palestinians, in the shooting near the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, whose members are loyal to Arafat, claimed responsibility.
The stepped-up Israeli military effort has included house-to-house searches for the past three days in Nablus, the West Bank city Israel now describes as the main center for Palestinian suicide bombers.
Israel also blew up nine Palestinian homes Sunday in the West Bank, all of them belonging to militants who carried out or orchestrated previous attacks. Israel is hoping the practice will discourage would-be assailants who want to spare their families from harm.
However, the only tangible result to date is that militant groups have stopped announcing the names of attackers and releasing their homemade videos, making it a bit more difficult for Israel to track down the families.
The bombing in the Galilee region of northern Israel turned the packed green bus into a fireball, charring the insides and ripping the metal panels.
The bus was filled with both civilians and soldiers heading back to their bases Sunday, the beginning of the Israeli work week. The nine passengers killed included three Israeli soldiers, two women from the Philippines and four Israeli civilians -- including one Arab-Israeli woman, authorities said. Thirty-seven people were injured, two critically, rescue workers said.
The bomber apparently warned two Arab students of the impending attack, and they got off the bus shortly before it blew up, a police source told the Associated Press. The two students have been detained, the source added.
Chaim Itzkovitch, 50, was just leaving his house for work early Sunday morning when "I heard a big bomb and I could see flames in the air."
"There was a lot of screaming, horrible screaming inside the bus," said Avraham Freed, who owns a restaurant near the blast site. "I saw one person on the ground next to the bus -- bodies, parts of bodies, people jumping through the windows."
Hours later, police and ultra-Orthodox Jewish volunteers were still picking through the debris to collect remains for burial and evidence for the investigation.
The bus driver, Shmuel Ronen, escaped with light wounds -- just as he did six years ago when the bus he was driving in Jerusalem was bombed.
In other violence Sunday and early today:
Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip shot and killed an armed Palestinian dressed in a wet suit as he came ashore along the Mediterranean coast. The would-be assailant, armed with an automatic rifle and grenades, apparently swam along the coastline before emerging near Jewish settlements, the army said.
Four Israeli soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously, when a roadside bomb damaged their jeep outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In the northern West Bank, three Israelis were wounded in a shooting ambush, according to Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a spokesmen for the Jewish settlers. Two of the wounded were soldiers and one was a civilian, he added.
In the West Bank town of Hebron on Sunday, Palestinian security officials said a truck driver was shot and killed while violating the curfew. An Israeli military spokesman said the incident is under investigation.
Early today, Palestinians opened fire on a car traveling on the main road through the West Bank, between Ramallah and Nablus, killing an Israeli couple and wounding two of their children, the military said.
Also today, Israeli troops fatally shot two Palestinians, including a fugitive local leader of Arafat's Fatah movement, in the village of Borqa north of Nablus, relatives said.
-- Information from the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune was used in this report.