Israel: No immediate retaliation for bus bombing
Israel has decided to hold off on a major military strike in response to a Hamas bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed at least 20 people, including as many as six children, a security official said today.
Last night’s attack – which also wounded about 100, including 40 children - was one of the deadliest in three years of fighting, and threatened to sink President Bush’s road map to peace in the Middle East.
The security official said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had decided to give Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan some time to begin cracking down on the violent militant groups. But he warned that Israel would not wait long and expected to see some action before the end of the day.
Dahlan was holding talks today with Palestinian security commanders in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who could lose his job if violence persists, has said he will not confront the militants because he fears internal fighting.
But he is now under mounting pressure to take strong action against militants, as required by Washington’s road map.
Israel meanwhile froze all contacts with the Palestinian Authority and cancelled the planned handover of two West Bank towns to Palestinian control.
Abbas was meeting Islamic Jihad leaders in Gaza City last night when he received word of the bombing. Condemning the attack as a “terrible crime”, he broke off contact with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
He also called off trips to Italy and Norway, initially planned for later this week, and convened an emergency Cabinet meeting.
Israel is expected to intensify its hunt for wanted militants if the Palestinian security forces do not take action, but a major military strike, like last year’s offensives in response to similar bombings, is not being considered, the Israeli defence official said.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas leaders today insisted they remained committed to a three month truce they and the other militants declared unilaterally on June 29, but said they reserved the right to take revenge for the killing of operatives by Israeli troops.
There were some indications the bomber, who had disguised himself as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was also trying to settle a personal score.
The assailant, 29-year-old mosque preacher Raed Mesk from Hebron, was friends with an Islamic Jihad leader in the city, Mohammed Sidr, who was killed by Israeli troops last week.
Many Jewish worshippers had boarded the bus at the Western Wall, the Jewish holy site. It was heading for an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, and families with children were packed in the seats and aisles.
“I had just come home from praying at the Western Wall and was heading home,” said Zvi Weiss, an 18-year-old seminary student from New York who sat in the front of the bus and escaped unharmed.
“The bomb went off at the back of the bus. Everything went black. I climbed out of the broken window and started running,” he said. “All around me there were people covered in blood, screaming, some with limbs missing.”
Several crying children with tattered clothes and blood-smeared faces were led away from the scene. Body parts were strewn amid broken glass.
Since the intefadeh began in September 2000, more than 2,400 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and more than 800 on the Israeli side.
Alex Fishman, a military correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, said Washington would probably increase its pressure on the Palestinian Authority to round the up militants.
“It is absolutely necessary to continue on the political track because the alternative is a return to the never-ending cycle of blood,” Fishman wrote.
