The bombers of Hamas struck at the heart of student life on Wednesday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 70 in a lunchtime attack on a crowded university cafeteria.
In the maelstrom of the intifada, the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University had remained a rare preserve of co-existence between Arab and Jew, and attracted scores of foreign exchange students during the summer months.
On Wednesday the forecourt of the Frank Sinatra international students’ centre was splattered with blood, food, smashed trays and shards from huge plate glass windows blown out by a powerful bomb apparently left inside.
Hamas said the bombing was the first act of retaliation for Israel’s decision to drop a one-tonne bomb in Gaza City, killing a commander it had targeted for assassination and 14 other Palestinians.
Sharon Avital (26), an MBA student, had just put down her tray at a table by the windows when an explosion rocked the heavy concrete pavilion. ”First of all there was silence, and then the screaming started,” she said, after being treated for minor head cuts. ”There were screams, people lying on the floor, blood and darkness. I felt a blow to the back of my head, and then I looked down and my hands were covered in blood.”
One of the dead was an American exchange student, officials at Jerusalem hospitals said, and foreign students — an American, an Italian, and three from South Korea — were among the wounded. At least 10 Arab students were also injured.
Most of the wounded were aged between 18 to 30, and were hit by shrapnel or metal rods when the ceiling collapsed.
Students ripped up their T-shirts for tourniquets and carried the wounded to ambulances. The corpses were laid out under black plastic sheeting against the nearby law faculty building.
”I saw a girl my age covered up with a blanket because she was dead,” said Daniel Farahan, a 20-year-old from Indiana with long dreadlocks under his kippa (skullcap). ”You see it on TV all the time, but this was nothing like TV.”
The bombing marked a departure from Hamas’s usual methods — primarily suicide bombings.
”The bomb was in a bag, which had been planted on a table in the centre of the restaurant,” said police spokeswoman Sigal Toledo.
Within minutes of the attack, police began rounding up young Palestinian men in Arab areas near the campus, forcing them to stand spreadeagled against walls.
Until now, educational institutions were seen as off-limits to attackers — particularly Hebrew University, where a high proportion of students are Arabs, Palestinians and Israeli citizens from the Arab towns of Galilee.
”How do you justify walking into a university and blowing up children who are studying?” asked Alistair Goldrein from Liverpool, who has been studying at the university for a month. ”These were students. A lot of people are heavy leftwingers who want to get out of the territories right away.”
In an implicit claim of responsibility, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said the attack was the natural consequence of events in Gaza.
”When Israel bombs a civilian building full of women and children, and kills 15 people, this is the response they should expect,” he told the television cameras. ”Today’s Israeli government should bear responsibility.”
A Hamas official said it would be the first of many attacks. It was the second bombing in Jerusalem in 24 hours.
Although Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority was swift to say it ”absolutely condemns the attack”, it also laid the blame at the feet of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for continuing Israel’s policy ”of destruction, killing and collective punishment”.
Just hours before the attack, Sharon’s Security Cabinet ordered the first expulsion of a relative of a Palestinian militant since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
Although Israel’s plans to deport the families of wanted Palestinian men have been condemned abroad, Public Security Minister Uzi Landau told Israel Radio onWednesday that it was ”enough for a relative of a relative of a suicide bomber to set up a mourning tent or visit a mourning tent for him” in order to be selected for exile.
It said the first candidate for deportation — a relative of one of the militants who ambushed a busload of Jewish settlers two weeks ago — would be given a chance to appeal. However, he was expected to be deported this week. — (c) Guardian Newspapers