Dual suicide bombings in the heart of Tel Aviv killed at least 23 people last night, many of them believed to be migrant workers from Africa, eastern Europe and the Philippines.
The slaughter brought a shattering end to a lull of more than six weeks without such attacks in Israel, just three weeks before its general election.
Near simultaneous explosions blew apart parallel streets packed with busy shops and cafes in an area that is home to much of the city’s poor foreign labour.
”I was in the middle of the street,” said John Adu, a Ghanaian cleaner, who had gone out for food. ”I heard this boom and I ran until I fell down. People were stepping on me. I couldn’t stand up. When I got up there was this second explosion. I thought, my God, I’m going to die here in Israel.”
Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, heard the powerful explosions in the vicinity of Tel Aviv’s old bus station while he was visiting Israel’s army headquarters.
The ambulance service said the blasts also injured about 120 people. The explosives were powerful enough to hurl body parts hundreds of yards and shatter windows several blocks away.
Qatar’s Jazeera satellite television said last night that the the Palestinian militant group al-Aqsa Brigades had claimed responsibility. The station showed a statement signed by the group — the military wing of Palestinian president Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction — and said it named the attackers as Boraq Abdel Rahman Halfa and Saber al-Nouri from Nablus.
The statement said the men had carried out the blasts to avenge the destruction of Palestinian homes, the station added. It did not give any more details.
Earlier a Lebanese television station, al-Manar, said Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility in a phone call to its West Bank correspondent, although Abdullah Shami, an Islamic Jihad leader, cast doubt on the claim.
Late last night Israeli attack helicopters fired four missiles at an unspecified target in Gaza City. There were no reports of casualties. It is inevitable that the dual bombing will bring a strong response from the government, particularly with the election three weeks away and security the primary issue for most voters.
In the United States, President George Bush was informed of the bombings by Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, who accompanied him back to Washington from Texas aboard Air Force One.
”He condemns this in the strongest possible terms,” White House representative Claire Buchan said. ”There are those who want to derail the peace process, but the president will not be deterred. Innocent people have a right to live in safety.”
The area’s foreign residents have seen this before. The first suicide bombing of 2003 occurred just three feet from the first bombing of last year. That one claimed the lives of two women. Another in August killed seven people. But yesterday’s bombs were among the worst Israel has experienced.
Ahmed Avey, a Turkish immigrant, was in his restaurant when the blast shattered the windows. ”This is not the first time. Three times they do this to us. We don’t understand it,” he said.
One of the survivors said: ”There was fire and smoke everywhere. I saw bodies strewn all over the ground. I saw a body without a leg and another with glass embedded in its face. There were bodies without hands, feet, fingers. I tried to help as much as possible.”
While ambulances struggled to make their way through the narrow streets and pedestrian precincts of old Tel Aviv, the survivors grabbed billboards and doors ripped off their hinges by the blast to carry the wounded to get treatment.
The shops lining streets in the neighbourhood are in stark contrast to much of Israel.
Signs in Chinese and English offer pork for sale, or guarantee a visa for a price. Call centres offer prices to phone Bulgaria, Ghana, Bolivia and the Philippines. The Christmas decorations outside the Bucovina restaurant miraculously survived.
On the pavement, a cloth was still laid out with a few shoes, a hair clipper and other odds and ends for sale.
”They killed the wrong people here,” said Anthony Tinubu, a Nigerian illegal immigrant. ”You ask yourself who would want to kill us.
”Look at that man, he is from China or somewhere. We are not Jews. I love Israel but I do not want to die because of what the Jews are doing to the Arabs. That is nothing to do with us.”
The police issued a statement saying that illegal immigrants injured in the blast had nothing to fear by going to hospital for treatment and that no one would be arrested or deported for seeking help.
But it was clear that many of the Africans and east Europeans were fearful of such a large police presence and some of the less seriously injured said they would not go to hospital.
Ariel Sharon’s representative, Ra’anan Gissin, said the bombings will recast the focus of the campaign for Israel’s general election in three weeks back onto violence and security, after several weeks of a scandal- plagued campaign over vote buying and other corruption in the ruling Likud.
”Israel is a democratic country where people vote for their leaders and the only way the Palestinians seem able to express themselves is by killing,” he said. ”The quiet that Israel has experienced recently is only fictitious. This attack will bring security back to the top of the election campaign agenda.” – Guardian Unlimited Â