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Monday, January 06, 2003 Shvat 3, 5763
Israel Time: 02:17
(GMT+2)
Last update - 00:38 06/01/2003
23 dead, 100 hurt in double suicide
bombing in Tel Aviv
By Haim Shadmi and Jonathan Lis, Ha'aretz
Correspondents, Ha'aretz Service and Agencies
At least 23 people were killed and 100
others were wounded - seven critically - in a double suicide bombing
at around 6:30 P.M. Sunday evening at the Old Central Bus Station in south
Tel Aviv.
The two suicide
bombers blew themselves up within less than a minute of one another,
at the corner of G'dud Ha'ivri and Neve She'anan streets in south Tel
Aviv.
"It seems
according to evidence in the area that we are talking of two suicide
bombers. Two explosions happened in parallel streets... It's a place
where there are many foreign workers," Tel Aviv police chief Yossi Sedbon
told Army Radio.
Dr. Yona Tannenbaum,
the head of Abu Kabir Forensics Institute, said that the majority of
the victims were Israeli, despite the attack occurring in an area frequented
primarily by foreign workers.
Police spokesman
Gil Kleiman said that the explosive devices used by the bombers were loaded
with metal shards in order to maximize the destruction.
"From the
extent of the damage on the scene... they were very strong explosive
devices. In each case metal fragments were added to the explosives to
increase the amount of death," he said.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims attack
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military
wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the
attack. In a statement claiming that it was behind the bombings, the
group identified the two bombers as Nablus residents Burak Hilsa and
Samar A-Nuri.
"The two martyrs
managed to cross all the Zionist army roadblocks and reached the heart
of Tel Aviv. One blew his pure body up at the old central bus station,
and the other blew himself up in another nearby street," the message said.
The statement
said that it was a double martyrdom operation that killed the highest
number of "the Zionist occupiers on the land of Palestine."
The group
vowed to continue suicide bombing attacks, adding that the attacks "would
be a revenge for the massacres carried out by Sharon against our innocent
people."
Initially,
a reporter for Lebanon's Al-Manar television station said that Islamic
Jihad had phoned him to take responsibility for the attack, but an official
in the Palestinian militant group said there had been no official statement.
Israel seeks to reassure fearful foreign
workers
Channel Two television reported that
foreign workers in Israel illegally had been wounded in the attack but
were hiding for fear of deportation.
Television
stations read police announcements in English, assuring illegal foreign
workers that they would not be deported if they sought treatment or searched
for friends and relatives in hospital.
Interior Minister
Eli Yishai ordered immunity from prosecution for all foreign workers
caught up in the attack, through injury to themselves or their families.
Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon was to convene a security meeting at 11:30 P.M. with Foreign
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the heads
of the security establishment at 11:30 P.M.
The attack
was the first suicide bombing in an Israeli city since November, when
a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing himself and 11 passengers.
On July 17
2002, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to the Neve
Sha'anan Quarter, killing three people and wounding 40 others. On January
25, 2002, 32 people were wounded in a suicide blast on Neve Sha'anat Street.
© Copyright 2003 Ha`aretz.
_______________________________________________________________________
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=248751&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0
Monday, January 06, 2003 Shvat 3, 5763
Israel Time: 02:17
(GMT+2)
Last update - 00:44 06/01/2003
Witnesses: IAF helicopters strike
Gaza City target
By Ha'aretz Service and Agencies
Israel Air Force Apache helicopters
fired four missiles late Sunday night at a target in Gaza City, witnesses
said.
The missiles
hit two Palestinian Authority offices and a building in the market, Israel
Radio reported. There were no reports of casualties.
Residents
also said there was a build-up of IDF armored forces and helicopters
overhead in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Rafah.
The IDF had
no immediate comment.
The strike
comes hours after two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up almost
simultaneously in Tel Aviv's old central bus station, killing 22 people
and wounding over 100 others.
Witness: I
knew there would be many casualties One of the witnesses of the
attack said that he knew there would be a high number of casualties in
the attack as soon as he felt the explosion.
"I heard the
explosion, I felt the shock wave. I realized there would be many casualties.
We looked for people who were breathing. I called over to them. I counted
quite a few seriously wounded. People were lying there," Alon Oz, an eyewitness,
told Army Radio.
Other witnesses
said there was extensive destruction of nearby buildings and even some
people inside houses and shops were among the wounded. A woman living
several blocks away from the site of the explosion reported that her
building shook from the impact of the blast.
Yitzhak Teva,
a local barber, who was slightly injured, said he was busy cutting hair
when the blast went off. "Half the wall fell on me and I was covered
in broken glass," Teva said. "I shut the shop and then there was the
next explosion."
Mitzna calls for change in security
policy
Labor chairman Amram Mitzna expressed
his deep shock and sadness to the terror attack. "At this difficult
hour, my heart is with the families and the wounded. I am determined
to change Israel's security policy so that we can mercilessly hit murderers
and those who send them, while establishing a separation fence that will
serve as a defensive shield between us and the terror," Mitzna said.
Herut chairman
MK Michael Klein said in response to the attack that Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat should be liquidated and that the Palestinians
should be hit with a final blow that would make them forget war for hundreds
of years. "What the Americans are planning for Saddam is nothing compared
to what we should do to the Palestinian Authority," Kleiner said.
PMO: Israel has no choice but to fight
terror
An official at the Prime Minister's
Office, David Baker, condemned the attack, saying that Israel had no other
choice but to fight terrorism with "a fury."
"The Palestinian
terrorist campaign of carnage has struck at innocent Israelis in Tel
Aviv," he told Ha'aretz. "Israel will not yield to Palestinian terror
and will fight it with a fury. We have no other choice."
U.S. President
George W. Bush condemned the attack, saying that he would not allow this
to bring recent peace moves to a halt.
"He condemns
this in the strongest possible terms," White House spokeswoman Claire
Buchan said. "There are those who want to derail the peace process. But
the president will not be deterred. Innocent people have a right to live
in safety."
Palestinian Authority condemns TA attack
The Palestinian Authority condemned
the suicide bombings as a "terrorist" attack and said it would act against
those behind it.
"The Palestinian
leadership, which condemns firmly and stands with all determination against
crimes conducted against Palestinian civilians...announces its total
condemnation of these terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians," it
said.
"It rejects
the idea of revenge with which some are trying to justify these attacks
against Israeli civilians," it added in a statement. "It announces its
determination to confront firmly...the perpetrators of these attacks,
the planners and whoever stood behind them."
The PA also
called for the international community to intervene to let Palestinian
security forces take action.
© Copyright 2003 Ha`aretz.
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