<font color=brown> Please explain to me what in hell was accomplished by Sharon taking out four Hamas last week. This week, thirteen have died in retaliation.
Like a good neocon, Sharon never lets the Hamas get away with sh*t and as a consequence, more Israelis die. This has been going on for years, but of course, this is what the Israelis have chosen. Explain to me again how this belief system begets anything but more death and ends up costing a lot more money! I want to know because we are quickly setting ourselves up for the same scenario with the Arab world.<font color=black>
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washingtonpost.com
Suicide Bombers Kill at Least 13
Dozens Wounded Outside Israeli Army Base and at Jerusalem Cafe
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page A01
JERUSALEM, Sept. 9 -- At least 13 people were killed and dozens wounded in two suicide bombings today, the first at a bus stop and hitchhiking post near the entrance to a major Israeli military base south of Tel Aviv, followed about six hours later by an explosion at a popular cafe in Jerusalem.
The attacks came after the radical Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, vowed revenge for Israeli assassinations that have killed 14 of its leaders in the past three weeks and narrowly missed its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, on Saturday.
Today's suicide bombings were the first in Israel since a man detonated himself on a bus packed with ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem on Aug. 19, killing 22 people in an attack that prompted Israel to escalate the killing of Hamas leaders. Hamas asserted responsibility for the bus bombing.
Earlier today, in a firefight in Hebron in the West Bank, Israeli troops killed two Hamas members and a 12-year-old bystander, and blew up a seven-story apartment building where the Palestinians were hiding.
Israeli military and police forces had braced for possible attacks this week with heightened security in all major Israeli cities. The first bomber detonated explosives at a bus stop 150 feet from one of the country's largest military bases at 5:55 p.m., just as many soldiers were leaving for the day. The second walked past sidewalk tables and blew himself up inside the entrance of Cafe Hillel on one of Jerusalem's most heavily patrolled streets at 11:19 p.m.
Hamas did not assert responsibility for either attack, but in a statement given to the al-Jazeera satellite television network, the Hamas military wing praised both bombings and said: "The time has come for paying the bill of the daily Israeli crimes. It's no longer time for words, but time for retaliation."
"There's a huge difference here," said Danny Seaman, an Israeli government spokesman who came to the site of the cafe bombing. "We're targeting militants, they're targeting civilians. If it's not a child on a bus, it's people having coffee at 11:30 at night."
After the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cut short a visit to India and planned to return to Israel on Wednesday. White House press secretary Scott McClellan, speaking to reporters tonight in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. . . . We condemn these vicious attacks in the strongest possible terms. Today's attacks underscore the need to fight terrorism and dismantle terrorist organizations. Terrorism is an obstacle to peace."
Ahmed Qureia, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament who has been nominated to be the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said, "We express our regrets and pain for the innocent lives [lost] as a result of violence and counter-violence." He added, "Such an act stresses once again the necessity that both the Palestinian and Israeli leadership . . . search for ways to end this killing."
In the rush-hour bombing at the bus stop, seven Israeli soldiers were killed, at least three of them women, and at least 15 were wounded. Six people were killed in the attack at the cafe and 31 were injured, according to Gil Kleiman, spokesman for the Israeli National Police.
In the second attack, the bomber strode past several outdoor tables, then walked into the cafe's front door, where a security guard attempted to stop him, according to Kleiman. "He got inside a couple of meters and detonated the device," Kleiman said.
"I heard the explosion and I started to run," said Annie Portal, 23, who was among about 50 customers at Cafe Hillel on Emek Refaim Street, a strip of coffee shops, restaurants and boutiques in Jerusalem's affluent German Colony neighborhood. "I saw all sorts of body parts -- fingers, and the soles of someone's feet." Portal was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital and released.
Cafe Hillel, which was one of Jerusalem's most popular downtown coffee shops, had opened its branch on Emek Refaim Street early this summer as residents began returning to the city's cafes and restaurants during a stretch of relative calm. Palestinian militant groups had declared a cease-fire and U.S. officials were pushing the "road map" peace initiative.
But tensions were mounting in recent days. On Saturday night, an Israeli fighter jet narrowly missed killing Yassin, the Hamas founder, when it dropped a quarter-ton bomb on a house in Gaza City.
Since then, the number of patrons at the cafe had dropped by about two-thirds, said Rami Abu Isvitian, a 23-year-old Palestinian who worked in the kitchen. He was there tonight when, he recalled, "Suddenly we heard a boom." Rushing into the dining room, he said he saw "bodies on the floor."
Coby Hamami, 20, who lives across the street from the cafe and works as a security guard at a pizza restaurant two doors away, said he was in the living room of his second-floor apartment when he heard a huge explosion and saw a bright flash of fire outside. His windows fronting the street blew open, he said.
"I went outside on the balcony and the suicide bomber's head was in the middle of the street, and an old man was all bloody because part of the metal frame from the window had penetrated him," Hamami said. "Then came the awful smell of burning flesh."
In the earlier attack, a bomber identified by Israeli security officials as a 19-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank town of Rantis blew himself up at a large bus stop and hitchhiking post near the entrance to the Tzrifin military base, about 12 miles south of Tel Aviv.
"I saw parts of legs, I saw parts of a hand in the street," said Eyan Uzman, 32, a firefighter and one of the first rescue workers to reach the scene. "People were crying hysterically. There were mobile phones on the ground ringing and no one was answering."
Israeli security officials said they believed the attack near the town of Rishon Letzion had been well planned. It was staged outside a sprawling military compound just 25 minutes after soldiers were released from their jobs and training courses; many were joining the evening rush hour. Additional military and civilian security guards had been posted near the bus stop, according to police officials.
The blast from a bomb packed with nuts and bolts splattered blood on the bus stop overhang, 25 feet above the ground, and flung a soldier's leg -- still inside a combat boot -- onto the nearby sidewalk.
The most seriously injured victims were brought to the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, less than a quarter-mile from the bombing site, though ambulances were hampered by the gridlocked rush-hour traffic.
In the Hebron violence, the two local Hamas leaders and 12-year-old boy were killed during a 12-hour standoff between Israeli tanks and the two militants hiding in an apartment building. The youngster, Thaer Sayuri, lived in a nearby building and was killed by shrapnel from a tank round, according to Palestinian media reports.
The two Hamas members, identified as Ahmed Bader and Izzedine Mesk, were killed when an Israeli military task force broke into the building, according to a military spokesman. The militants opened fire and the soldiers shot back, killing the two men, the spokesman said. No Israeli soldiers were injured in the operation. Israeli military forces then destroyed the high-rise building, according to witnesses.
Researchers Samuel Sockol, Eetta Prince-Gibson and Hillary Claussen contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company |
