thew animals have done it again....14 dead
Seven dead in suicide attack in Jerusalem cafe
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Agencies
Fourteen people were killed and dozens more wounded
- many seriously - in two bombing attacks Tuesday,
the first near an army base outside Tel Aviv, the
second in a teeming cafe in Jerusalem.
An afternoon blast at a
hitchhiking post for soldiers
outside a main entrance to the
Tzrifin army base left seven
dead and dozens wounded.
Five hours later, another bomber
killed seven and wounded at
least 30 others at the popular
Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem's
German Colony, where many
restaurants, small shops and boutiques cater to
the residential neighborhood.
Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy said that the
security guard at the entrance to the Jerusalem
cafe had failed to prevent the bomber from
entering, and that he had managed to get
several meters inside.
"A suicide bomber entered the cafe and detonated
his explosives," Levy said. "Two guards were
stationed at the cafe, one at the entrance and
one inside."
"Apparently the guard at the entrance saw him
and tried to stop him from going in. But he got
inside and there was a powerful explosion," he
added.
The attack had been preceded by a specific
intelligence warning that a Hamas terrorist had
been dispatched to the capital from the West
Bank city of Hebron.
Levy said that throughout the day security
forces conducted an extensive manhunt on the
streets of the Jerusalem and that the public
can feel "calm" about the situation.
The police chief refused to elaborate, but
appeared to be intimating that the threat that
had led to a heightened state of alert in the
capital had passed. He said there was no
connection between this terror warning and the
suicide bombing.
The military wing of Hamas, Iz a Din al-Kassam,
sent a statement to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera
satellite channel, haling the attack and one
less than six hours earlier at a bus-stop
outside a military base near Rishon Letzion
that killed seven people, but stopped short of
claiming responsibility.
"After the two attacks in Tel Arabiya [Tel Aviv]
and
Jerusalem, despite all the Israeli security
precautions, we told the Zionists it was
payback time," said the statement read by the
channel.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the
bombings "vicious attacks" and condemned them
in the "strongest possible terms."
"This underscores that terrorism is an obstacle
to peace and terrorists are the enemy of
peace," McClellan said, speaking outside a Bush
fund raiser in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Eyewitnesses said the terrorist was spotted in
the cafe by some customers who began struggling
with him, shoving him out of the restaurant. It
was then that he blew up. Haim, a 15-year-old
resident of the neighborhood, told Itim that he
saw the struggle as he walked past the cafe,
and then the bomb went off.
According to another eyewitness, the bomber
tried to get into a Pizza Meter restaurant but
was rebuffed by a security guard, so he went
into the next door Cafe Hillel.
Iyad Herev, Israel Radio's police reporter for
Arab broadcasts, also happened to be in the
area, visiting friends. "We heard a large boom
and some of the broken glass flew into the
porch where we were sitting."
He said he arrived on the scene before any of
the rescue vehicles. "I saw someone's head,
three bodies and the place was demolished.
There were crying people, people in hysteria.
I've grown used to seeing such scenes over the
past three years but I never experienced the
sound of the bombing and then those horrible
sights. It was madness, despite the expectation
that it would happen. We really did expect it
today."
The blast blew out the windows of the cafe and
many of the other shops along the street, but
the external structure remained standing. It
set off the alarms of dozens of parked cars
nearby.
Police were careful about arriving ambulances,
since there have been intelligence reports
about Palestinian terrorists planning to use an
ambulance to attack either the scene of a
bombing or a hospital.
At Jerusalem hospitals, all too familiar with
the routine of such events, hospital gurneys
were lined up in the well-lit driveways outside
the emergency rooms, to handle the flow of
ambulances.
Bruno Solan, who was in the cafe at the time of
the blast, said "the place was full, and
suddenly there was a blast and a large ball of
fire. Everyone inside fell to the floor. We all
knew what it was and then we got up and started
to run away. There were a lot of wounded and
they went into shock and some started
shouting."
"I have a store next to the cafe. I arrived just
a few moments after the blast. I saw things
that just can't be described, there are no
words," said a witness who identified himself
only as Shavi.
"All of a sudden there was a huge boom and
shrapnel and glass shards filled the house,"
said a witness who identified herself only as
Odelia.
"I went to my son's room and there was glass all
over the bed and it's a miracle that he wasn't
hurt... The whole neighborhood was terrified."
The Tzrifin blast took place at just before 6
P.M. at the crowded bus stop outside Tzrifin,
close to the entrance of Assaf Harofeh
Hospital. Police said the bomber was a
19-year-old Palestinian man from Rantis, in the
West Bank. He wore civilian clothes and carried
a leather bag containing a 2-3 kilogram bomb.
He got out of a car at the bus stop, and almost
immediately blew himself up, said
eyewitnesses.
Seven soldiers were killed by the bomber. Many
of the wounded were in serious condition, said
reports throughout the evening. The wounded
were evacuated to nearby Assaf Harofeh
Hospital, Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Wolfson
Medical Center in Holon and Sheba Medical
Center at Tel Hashomer.
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