AL QUDS, June 18: A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus packed with schoolchildren and office workers during morning rush hour on Tuesday, killing 19 people and wounding more than 50, police said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to fight “Palestinian terror” as he surveyed the damage caused by the attack, which could undercut U.S. President George W. Bush’s plan this week to lay out a framework for Middle East peace.
The blast lifted bus number 32 off the ground and reduced it to charred wreckage. The scream of sirens could not drown out the moans of wounded lying in pools of blood. Police said several teenagers were among the dead and children were among the injured.
“People were flying in the air and there was blood everywhere,” said Yakir Barashi, 14, who had just stepped off another bus. “I’m afraid to go on a bus, to go to school. I saw one kid with nails cutting into his entire body.”
Shalom Sabag was driving in front of the commuter bus at the time of the blast, the latest in a series of suicide bombings in Israel. He rushed to help pull out the dead and wounded.
“Bodies were piled up near the door of the bus,” he said. “I took off the bodies of two girls and a man. There was one girl I cannot forget. She had a long braid down her back and she lay on her stomach.”
The bus driver sat dead in his seat, his hands still on the steering wheel. Blood dripped down the steps of the rear door.
Police had been on alert because of intelligence reports warning of bombers in the area, but they failed to catch the man who blew himself up with a bomb packed with nails and shrapnel.
SCENE: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came quickly to the scene where, against the backdrop of body bags lined up side-by-side on the pavement, he declared his opposition to any idea of declaring a Palestinian state soon.
“This terrible thing that we are seeing is the continuation of the Palestinian terror and we must fight and struggle against this terror and this is what we will do,” Sharon told reporters in his first visit to the scene of a bombing as prime minister.
“The terrible pictures we see here are stronger then every word,” Sharon said. “It’s interesting to speculate what kind of Palestinian state they want... What are they talking about?”
The latest attack coincided with a Middle East policy review in Washington and plans by US President George Bush to chart a two-state settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Israeli officials swiftly pointed the finger of blame.
“The attack indicates that the Palestinian Authority continues to export terror into Israel,” David Baker, an official in Sharon’s office, said. “Terror flows from the PA like an open faucet.”
The Palestinian Authority denounced the bombing, denied the accusations it was to blame and pledged to hunt down those responsible, saying such attacks harmed the nationalist cause.
But the Authority called on the United States and the world community to force Israel to stop attacks on Palestinian-ruled areas which it said hindered its security forces’ operations.
“We condemn all attacks against civilians, whether Palestinians or Israelis,” said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a senior aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the bombing “an act of evil beyond words”.
The bombing also coincided with a controversy over an Israeli project launched on Sunday to erect a 110-km barrier straddling the border with the West Bank.—Reuters
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.