August 19, 2003
JERUSALEM — A stretch bus with two full passenger sections was torn apart by an explosion in Jerusalem Tuesday evening, killing at least 20 people, including three children, a rescue service said.
Photo: The wreckage of a bus is sits on a Jerusalem street Tuesday night, Aug. 19, 2003. A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday on the packed bus on a main thoroughfare, killing at least 13 people and wounding 80, authorities said. Nobody immediately claimed responsibility. (AP Photo/APTN)
Israeli police said a homicide bomber blew himself up on the packed bus at about 9 p.m. local time. The blast, which injured at least 100, took place on a main thoroughfare in West Jerusalem.
Islamic Jihad called journalists in the West Bank and claimed responsibility for the bus attack, saying it was to avenge the killing of Jihad area leader Mohammed Sidr last week.
However, Fox News was faxed a letter from Hamas in which the group also claimed responsibility, and said it was avenging the deaths of some of its members in the last few weeks.
Dore Gold, senior adviser to Ariel Sharon, said both organizations are “very active.”
“They have slightly different goals but both are working together and want to destroy Israel,” he told Fox News.
Rescuers had to use blowtorches to pry some of the wounded from the wreckage. Paramedics treated the wounded on the sidewalk, and body parts were strewn about.
Survivors with burned and blood-smeared faces were being led away from the scene by paramedics. A small girl and a crying boy were among those taken off the bus.
The bus, badly damaged with its windows blown out, had started out at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine, in the walled Old City.
Another bus nearby was also hit by the blast.
"What is clear is that it was a very big bomb," Jerusalem fire chief Amnon Amir said.
Fox News' Jonathan Hunt reported seeing six people carried away from the scene by emergency workers and a large trickle of blood running into the street from the wrecked bus, which he described as a "folding" type with a rubber flexible connector halfway along its length.
Hunt reported that 15 people suffered serious injuries, 10 of which were children.
He said while the explosion took place some 200 yards from American Colony Hotel, where a lot of foreign journalists stay, this was most likely coincidence, and the more telling factors in the explosion are it was the No. 2 bus that runs to an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood and it occurred right outside a synagogue.
The bombing threatened to restart the cycle of attacks and retaliation that could derail a U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan to Palestinian statehood.
In a first move, Israel called off the planned handover of the West Bank towns of Jericho and Qalqiliya to Palestinian control. The handover was to have taken place later this week.
In Washington, the White House deplored the bombing and offered sympathies to the victims and their families.
"We condemn this vicious act of terrorism," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman on national security issues. "We call on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorism."
Palestinian legislator Saeb Erekat condemned the bombing.
The explosion went off as Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was meeting with Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip to persuade its members to halt attacks on Israelis.
Over the weekend, Israel and the Palestinians had reached agreement on the handover of four West Bank towns to Palestinian control. That deal was likely to be put on hold.
The Palestinian Authority had no immediate comment. The explosion went off as Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas) was meeting with Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip to persuade them to halt attacks on Israelis.
The militants had declared a unilateral truce on June 29 but have said they would continue taking revenge for Israeli killings of their operatives.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95150,00.html