BEERSHEBA, Aug 31: Palestnian suicide bombers killed at least 16 people in simultaneous attacks on two Israeli buses on Tuesday, breaking a long lull in such attacks and potentially disrupting an Israeli plan to pull out of Gaza.
The bombings in the southern city of Beersheba were the first in Israel since March and the deadliest since last October. They showed that Hamas militants were not a spent force even after repeated Israeli assassinations of their leaders and building of a West Bank barrier.
The group claimed responsibility for the new attacks as vengeance for the assassination of two top leaders in helicopter missile strikes soon after two suicide bombers hit the port of Ashdod nearly six months ago.
Thousands of Hamas supporters took to the streets of Gaza City in celebrations after the bombings. Shortly before the Beersheba bombings, Palestinian militants renewed their vow to continue fighting Israel until it quit all territories it occupied in the 1967 war.
The Israeli army earlier claimed its soldiers at a Gaza border terminal had captured a would-be suicide bomber who was wearing a new form of explosives belt. The bombers boarded buses at the same stop near Beersheba's central bus station and detonated hidden explosive belts when the vehicles were just a few dozen metres apart.
"The bus simply blew up. It just blew up in front of my eyes," said motorist Joey Harel. The blasts gutted the buses and scattered bloodied remains. Many of the passengers were leaving a market.
The bombers came from the nearby West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli officials said the unfinished section of the barrier near Hebron underlined the urgency of finishing its construction to keep out such attackers.
Israel says the 200kms of its barrier erected so far have thwarted dozens of would-be bomber infiltrations into its densely populated north and coastal regions. But sections between Jerusalem and Hebron have been held up by an Israeli court order that they be rerouted to avoid cutting off Palestinians from their farmlands.
Israeli troops sealed off Hebron after the bombing. Palestinians denounce the barrier as a grab of land they seek for statehood because it would take in large Jewish settlements. The World Court has ruled the barrier illegal.
GAZA PLAN: The Beersheba bloodshed could make it harder for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to overcome resistance in his right-wing camp to his plan for evacuating occupied Gaza and bits of the West Bank to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians.
Rightist hawks powerful in Mr Sharon's Likud party contend that quitting Gaza would "reward Palestinian terrorism". But Mr Sharon dismissed an Israel Radio report quoting a senior government official as saying the fresh assault by Hamas, sworn to destroy Israel itself, was designed to sabotage his plan.-Reuters