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.
