- Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian bomber kills three Israelis in West Bank
- Date: 31st March 2006
- Summary: (W5) RAFA, GAZA (MARCH 30, 2006) (REUTERS) HAMAS SPOKESMAN SAMI ABU ZUHRI (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HAMAS SPOKESMAN, SAMI ABU ZUHRI, SAYING: "We in Hamas assure the right of the Palestinian people and the resistance factions to defend themselves in facing the continuous Israeli aggression, it is that which is responsible for all these results and developments, because of the
- Embargoed: 15th April 2006 13:00
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- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA1MD2E0UJ85I6F5RHURLH01P6Z
- Story Text: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least three Israelis near a settlement in the West Bank on Thursday (March 30, 2006) in an attack that a new Hamas-led government called a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
The first such bombing in two months came a day after Hamas took office and two days after Israeli leader Ehud Olmert's party won elections with a platform of imposing a border in the occupied West Bank if peacemaking remains frozen. Rescue workers said the bomber was disguised as a religious Jew and was hitchhiking. He talked his way into a car near the entrance to the settlement, then blew himself up.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, claimed the bombing and said it was in response to Israeli attacks.
Islamic militant group Hamas, which has been under Western pressure to renounce violence and recognise Israel or face big cuts in vital direct aid to the Palestinian government it now controls, said that it understood the attack.
"We in Hamas assure the right of the Palestinian people and the resistance factions to defend themselves in facing the continuous Israeli aggression, it is that which is responsible for all these results and developments, because of the continuation of their crimes of assassinations and arrests and the continuation in the building of the separation wall and the suffering of our people on the Israeli military checkpoints and we assure always the continuation of the resistance against this aggression," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
Palestinian governments under Fatah's control had recently condemned suicide bombings inside Israel, though used more careful language when it came to attacks inside the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Israel said the Kedumim attack followed dozens of warnings of impending attacks.
Hamas, formally sworn to destroying Israel and behind nearly 60 suicide bombings during a Palestinian uprising, has largely followed a truce itself for more than a year.
The ZAKA rescue service said the car blew up near a petrol station close to the settlement. It said three or four bodies had been found inside the vehicle.
An Israeli military source said the vehicle had an Israeli licence plate but it was not officially confirmed if the bodies were Israelis.
Al Aqsa named the bomber as 24-year old Ahmed Mahmoud Masharqa, from the West Bank city of Hebron.
"I am the living martyr Ahmed Mahmoud Masharka I am the son of Palestine from river to the sea, I am one of the screams of the mothers of martyrs, I am who gives his sole to God and the nation and for the soles of our martyrs, the heroes, the leader, the martyrs. I am the first to retaliate for all the attacks and the incursions and the repeated daily attacks against our great people, which result in one martyr after the other, therefore, I have decided to give my sole for the sake of God and his followers, because our lives are not going to be cheap before the criminal enemy, who does not know anything but death and destruction and it is a revolution until victory, your brother in faith, Ahmed Mahmoud Masharka," the bomber siad in a pre-recorded video.
In January a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near Tel Aviv's central bus station, wounding 30 people but killing only himself. Militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for that attack. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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