ISRAEL/GAZA: Palestinian suicuide bomber kills three people in Israeli resort town

Record ID: 356203

  • Title: ISRAEL/GAZA: Palestinian suicuide bomber kills three people in Israeli resort town
  • Date: 29th January 2007
  • Summary: (W3) EILAT, ISRAEL (JANUARY 29, 2007) (REUTERS) BODY BEING EVACUATED INTO AMBULANCE RESCUE TEAM CLEANING UP SITE ANOTHER BODY BEING TRANSFERRED INTO AMBULANCE MORE OF CLEANUP THIRD BODY BEING TRANSFERRED INTO AMBULANCE (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) EYE WITNESS SAYING: "As I was going to cross the street I heard the explosion, I heard a loud explosion and I saw smoke and a big flame
  • Embargoed: 13th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA4MUBTBZDLAU7NPX80TOK612WT
  • Story Text: After nine months of relative quiet a suicide bomber blew himself up in an Israeli resort town, killing three people. Israel vowed to prevent further attacks. Gaza militants claimed responsibility. A Palestinian suicide bomber on Monday (January 29) killed three people in a bakery in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, one of Israel's most popular holiday spots, in the first such attack in nine months.
    The blast tore through the "Lechamim" bakery in a residential neighbourhood far from a strip of beach hotels. Loaves of bread, still on trays, lay on the blood-stained pavement outside.
    "As I was going to cross the street I heard the explosion, I heard a loud explosion and I saw smoke and a big flame and black smoke rising and I saw pieces flying in the air," said a neighbour who witnessed the attack.
    Security and rescue forces were called to the scene. Some cleaned up the site as others evacuated the bodies into ambulances.
    "For a long time we enjoyed relative quiet, but it must be said, fictitious, with everything connected to terror activity. In the last weeks, although it was not reported, we prevented many attacks," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed a Knesset committee in a televised speech.
    Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the attack was under the responsibility of a Hamas-led Palestinian government, sworn to Israel's destruction.
    "Unfortunately, in the Palestinian Authority, instead of a fight against terrorism, we see a government which is controlled by a terrorist organisation. Israel shows restraint in order to give the Palestinians the opportunity to fight terrorism and to stop these terror attacks on Israel," Livni told Reuters.
    Islamic Jihad and Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed joint responsibility for the bombing.
    A spokesman for the Aqsa brigades, part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, identified the suicide bomber as Mohammad Faisal Siksik, 21, from Gaza City, a member of the brigades' "Army of Believers'.
    The militant groups said the bombing was a response to Israeli "attempts to defile al-Aqsa mosque" in Jerusalem, a reference to recent archaeological excavations. Israeli officials said the work had not damaged the shrine.
    "The heroic operation is an announcement of the beginning of a series of operations in defence to al-Aqsa mosque and in the course of natural response against the savage aggression by the occupation. It is also in reaction to the attempts to defile al-Aqsa mosque. Resistance will continue until all of the land of Palestine is liberated and all the occupiers are removed," said a masked militant at a joint Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Brigades news conference in Gaza.
    The attack -- the first time Eilat has been hit by a suicide bombing -- came four days before the so-called Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators was to meet in Washington as part of a renewed effort to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
    Dozens of Islamic Jihad supporters gathered at the family home of Siksik to support his relatives. His brother said that the family knew of Siksik's planned attack and prayed he would carry it out.
    Israel raised fears the attack could scare tourists away from Eilat.
    Nearly 180,000 foreign tourists visited the resort, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, last year. The city has been spared the violence of a more than six-year-long Palestinian uprising.
    A Palestinian suicide bomber last struck in Israel on April 17, 2006, killing 11 people outside a restaurant in Tel Aviv in an attack claimed by the Islamic Jihad group.
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