|
Suicide blast tears through jerusalem bus Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61607-2004Feb22.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61607-2004Feb22.html
Suicide Bomb Blast Tears Through Jerusalem Bus
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
JERUSALEM, Feb. 22 -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives aboard a Jerusalem bus during the Sunday morning rush hour in an upscale city neighborhood, killing at least nine people including the bomber, wounding more than 50 others and flinging body parts across streets and into a nearby gasoline station, according to Israeli police officials and witnesses.
Israeli officials said the blast, the second bus bombing in the same area of central Jerusalem in a month, was evidence of the need to build a massive wall and fence complex around and through the West Bank. The blast came on the eve of hearings about the barrier project that start Monday in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
"If anyone had even the slightest doubt as to the necessity of Israel's security fence, those doubts have now disappeared," said David Baker, an official in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Israel continues to be compelled to take the necessary steps to contain the Palestinian campaign of terror directed against our citizens in the hearts of our city, on our buses and in our cafes."
A 23-year-old Palestinian from a village near the West Bank city of Bethlehem reportedly set off the explosives in the mid section of the green Egged No. 14 bus, which was jammed with a standing-room-only load of commuters, students and soldiers at 8:27 a.m. on the first day of the Israeli workweek. Police said the bomb was stuffed with metal scraps from a construction site, transforming the shards into lethal projectiles that sliced through passengers and severed body parts.
"I felt the earth shaking, it was like an earthquake," said Raed Shweiki, 23, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem who was pumping gasoline barely 12 yards from the bus at the Sonol Liberty Bell Park service station. "I saw the glass from the windows of the bus flying toward us -- and arms and legs. I ran."
Osama Juaba, 31, another Palestinian attendant who was filling a taxi with diesel at the next pump, said he was splattered with bits of flesh: "I heard a boom and pieces of flesh flew on me and the taxi."
Palestinian officials condemned the attack, and the Palestinian gas station employees, who were visibly shaken and taken by ambulance to a hospital, cursed the bomber. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, speaking to reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, called for "an immediate halt to these actions," which he said give Israel an excuse to continue building the barrier.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group that is associated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, asserted responsibility for the attack in a statement faxed to news media in the Palestinian territories and identified the bomber as Mohammed Zaul, the married father of a young son, from the village of Hussan west of Bethlehem. The statement said the bombing was retaliation for a Feb. 11 Israeli military incursion into Gaza City in which 15 Palestinians were killed and to demonstrate opposition to "the Nazi wall" Israel is constructing.
The Jan. 29 Jerusalem bus bombing that left 11 people dead also was carried out by a bomber from the Bethlehem area. Bethlehem is about three miles south of Jerusalem, and within six hours of Sunday's explosion, Israeli military forces had entered the bomber's village and closed off access to Bethlehem and most surrounding communities, according to a military spokeswoman and area residents. The bomber's family emptied their house and small grocery shop of possessions in expectation that Israeli forces would destroy their properties, neighbors said.
Israeli national police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the attack was the 250th suicide bombing or attempted suicide bombing since the Palestinian uprising against Israel began 41 months ago. It was the 24th bombing in Jerusalem and raised the city's death toll from suicide attacks to 170. More than 1,250 people have been injured in the attacks.
The blast occurred at the congested intersection of Emek Rafaim and King David streets on the edge of the city's sprawling Liberty Bell Park, an area surrounded by some of Jerusalem's most popular hotels and within sight of the walls of the old city.
The force of the explosion gutted the interior of the bus and left the front windshield dangling like a spider web of cracked glass. On a blustery cold winter day, the blood-smeared street was littered with hats, gloves and scarves as well as purses, books and sheaves of paper.
"I was sitting on the left-hand side of the bus, in the second row with my back to the driver," said Meir Aharon, 69, who was treated for light injuries at Jerusalem's Shaare Tzedek Medical Center. "Suddenly I felt a powerful explosion. My hat and my yarmulke caught fire and blew off my head. I pushed others, and I forced my way off of the bus. I had blood on my face. I heard cries, but I couldn't see anything."
Jerusalem City Councilman Nir Barkat was waiting for the red light in the intersection opposite the bus: "I saw the bus blow up with my own eyes."
Barkat, whose hands and clothes were crusted with dried blood, said he ran to the bus. "We started taking the victims out, one by one. I had to step on pieces of body parts to get to a little girl in a seat."
Israeli television Channel 2 reported that law enforcement officials believe the bomber may have boarded the bus in an industrial area in southern Jerusalem near the start of the bus route and detonated the explosives a few stops after an Israeli bus security official left the vehicle. A spokesman for the Transportation Ministry declined to comment on the report but said the agency employs 900 security officials who randomly board buses throughout the country to check for possible bombers.
As of Sunday night, Israeli medical officials had released the identities of five of the eight victims. They included two 18-year-old high school students, a 20-year-old staff sergeant in the Israel Defense Forces, a 48-year-old store owner and a 31-year-old man.
Delegates to a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations streamed out of their hotel about a block away from the explosion site.
"You see pieces of bloody flesh in front of you blown 50 feet from the bus," U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said after walking through the carnage. "These were just people trying to go to work and school. It's disgusting the Palestinians are waging war against civilians."
Researchers Hillary Claussen and Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
|
|
