Nine people were killed and dozens wounded in Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv on Monday when a Palestinian bomber blew himself up in the deadliest suicide attack of the last 20 months.
The blast took place hours before the swearing in of the new Israeli Parliament and prompted a pledge by prime minister designate Ehud Olmert that its perpetrators would not go unpunished.
The bomb went off next to a fast food stand at lunchtime in the southern Neveh Sha’anan district, close to the site of Tel Aviv’s old bus station. The area has been the scene of several previous attacks, including one in January.
The blast — the deadliest since a suicide bombing in August 2004 — was claimed by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which has been behind all of the most recent bomb attacks in Israel.
Moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas condemned what he called an act of terrorism but the radical Islamist group Hamas, which recently formed a new government, laid the blame at Israel’s door for its ”aggression”.
There was also widespread international condemnation, with the White House saying there was ”no excuse or justification” for a ”despicable act of terror”.
Medical sources said nine people were killed in the blast, plus the bomber who had been wearing an explosives vest. Four of the victims died of their wounds in hospital.
Bystanders near the scene of the attack vented their fury, with one shouting: ”This is an embarrassment to the state of Israel. Where is the army? People are dying — where is the response?”
Blood was spattered across the pavement while restaurant chairs were turned over and shoe boxes from a nearby stand were strewn across the street.
Steve Bar-Ner, a spokesperson for the Magen David Adom ambulance service, said many of the casualties were foreign workers.
”The wounded were men and women, mostly middle-aged people and foreign workers,” he said.
Witnesses told police they had seen a blue vehicle fleeing the scene of the attack seconds before the explosion occurred. Police helicopters were searching for the vehicle, which they suspect dropped off the bomber.
”I saw a young man opening a bag at the entrance to the restaurant where a security guard was standing. The explosion happened a second later,” said bystander Mussa al-Zidat.
The area has been the target of several suicide attacks in recent years, including the last bombing in Israel on January 19 which wounded 15 people.
A spokesperson for Islamic Jihad told Agence France-Presse that the attack was a
”response to the Israeli massacres and siege imposed on our people”.
The group later distributed a video of the 21-year-old bomber, Samir Hamad, reading from the Koran and wearing a black Jihad headband.
His mother Samya said from the family home near the West Bank town of Jenin, that she had no idea about her son’s intentions.
”I thought that he had gone to work in Jenin before I was told on the phone that he had carried out this attack in Tel Aviv,” she said.
Israel had been on high alert for the Passover holiday after militant groups threatened to avenge a series of deadly Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip.
However security sources told AFP there had been no specific intelligence reports of an imminent attack.
Israeli MPs refused to be bowed by the latest violence as they took the oath of office.
In a brief speech to Parliament, Olmert pledged ”to do whatever is needed to deal with the terrorists and their dispatchers”.
”Today, with all its pain, is a celebration of the power of Israeli democracy which we will not allow to be derailed by anyone,” he said.
Olmert, who refuses to deal with Hamas, has vowed to fix the final borders of the Jewish state unilaterally within his term of office as long as the Palestinian Authority is led by what he regards as a terrorist organisation.
Hamas, which has itself been behind dozens of suicide attacks although none in the last year, held off from condemning the blast.
”The Israeli occupation bears the responsibility for this situation as a consequence of its crimes against our women and children, as well as the assassinations [and] arrests,” spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
The bombing followed a spate of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, carried out in response to rocket attacks, which left 18 Palestinians dead.
Abbas however said it ran ”contrary to our interests” while appealing to the international community to end the ”serious deterioration” in the region.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called on ”all parties to prevent any further descent into a senseless spiral of violence”.
Russia, which recently broke ranks with the West by holding talks with Hamas, also said there could ”be no justification” for the attack. – Sapa-AFP