Deadly Blast Strikes Outside Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station

23/03/2011

Jerusalem - A small bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop outside

Jerusalem’s main bus station on Wednesday, killing one woman and leaving
at least 24 other people injured, two seriously. It was the first bombing
inside Jerusalem in four years.

Israeli paramedics helped wounded people at the scene of an explosion

outside the Jerusalem's central bus station on Wedneday.

Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the minister of internal security, said the device was
relatively small, weighing from two pounds to a little over four pounds, and
had been left in a bag near a bus stop at the western edge of the city,
outside a convention center and across from the central station. News
media reported that there was no sign of a body at the scene to indicate a
suicide attack.

Most of those injured were standing on the street waiting for the bus to
arrive. Television images showed people carried away in stretchers.

At the time of the blast, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was
meeting with senior members of the security establishment for
consultations about the escalating violence along the border with Gaza.

A stray Israeli mortar shell killed three Palestinian youths and a 60-year-old
man on Tuesday as Israel responded to a rocket attack. On Tuesday night,
the Israeli Air Force killed four militants in a car in Gaza, all members of
Islamic Jihad, the organization and the Israeli military said. The army said
the men were preparing to launch rockets at Israel. Late Tuesday and early
Wednesday, Palestinian militants fired rockets deep into southern Israel, and
Israel responded with airstrikes in Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu was supposed to leave for Russia at 5 p.m. local time, about
two hours after the explosion, but a spokesman for the prime minister said
he had decided to delay his departure.
Israel’s interior minister, Eli Yishai, told reporters at the scene that Israel
was witnessing “an escalation on all fronts.” Checkpoints have been set up
on roads across Israel as police search for suspects.

“The actions of the terrorist organizations obligate us to act,” he said,

without elaborating.

Palestinian leaders in the West Bank condemned the bombing, The

Associated Press reported. In Gaza, two militant groups, Islamic Jihad and
the Popular Resistance Committees, praised and welcomed the attack. But
there were no claims of responsibility.

After the explosion, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said he would
consult with the army chief of staff and the minister of home front security.

"We will not tolerate attacks on Israeli civilians, neither in the southern
communities nor in Jerusalem," he said in a statement.

At least one Katyusha-type rocket hit a street in the center of the southern
Israeli city of Beersheva on Wednesday morning, slightly wounding one man
and causing damage to nearby houses. Several mortar shells also fell on the
Israeli side of the border with Gaza, the Israeli military said.

Mr. Barak said that Israel held Hamas responsible for Wednesday’s rocket
attacks, and added that "responsibility comes with a price."

The Israeli army will "continue to act to protect citizens of the state and to
carry out preventive actions" along the Gaza border, he added. "There will
be ups and downs. It will not be over by tomorrow, but we are determined to
restore security and calm."

The bomb at the bus stop on Wednesday detonated as two buses pulled into
the crowded stop, a passenger on one of the buses, Yair Zimmerman, said
in an interview. Small holes were seen in the body of one of the buses,
suggesting the explosive device had been packed with ball-bearings, to
increase the level of damage.
“I knew instantly that it was a terrorist attack,” he said, describing a chaotic
scene cut through with the smell of burnt plastic and blood.

The woman who was killed suffered a chest injury in the blast and died
shortly after, according to officials at Hadassah Hospital. They did not
provide any information on her identity.

The police were searching for a car that they said had been seen fleeing the
scene. Dozens of police officers and soldiers combed through debris for
fragments of the bomb. The bus station is adjacent to the ultra-orthodox
neighborhood of Givat Shaul, and hundreds of ultra-orthodox young men
gathered at the scene after the explosion.

Two weeks ago, a municipal worker lost his hand when a pipe bomb
exploded in a trash bag in the southern section of Jerusalem. There were no
claims of responsibility or arrests in that case.

The Jerusalem police commander, Aharon Franco, said in a televised

interview that the police would also investigate whether there was any link
between this attack and earlier pipe bomb explosion. “Despite the calm of
the last few years, we are calling on the public to be alert,” the police
commander said.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and J. David Goodman from New
York. Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram
from Gaza.

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