- Title: VARIOUS: SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS TWO PEOPLE AND WOUNDS DOZENS MORE AT TEL AVIV BAR
- Date: 30th April 2003
- Summary: (W8) TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (APRIL 30, 2003) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SCENES) 1. VARIOUS, PERSON BEING CARRIED AWAY ON STRETCHER 0.08 2. VARIOUS, EMERGENCY SERVICES ATTENDING WOUNDED YOUNG MEN SITTING ON THE GROUND 0.24 3. SMV OF SCENE WITH POLICE WALKING UNDER CORDON 0.35 4. VARIOUS OF WOUNDED ON STRETCHERS BEING ATTENDED TO,AND CARR
- Embargoed: 15th May 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL / JERUSALEM / GAZA
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA9COBABHE4JI2FOKJX46UTKCXX
- Story Text: A Palestinian suicide bomber has killed at least two
people and wounded dozens more when he blew himself up on a
seaside promenade in Israel's largest city Tel Aviv, police
and medics said.
The blast occurred shortly after midnight, hours after
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas won parliamentary
approval for a new cabinet and pledged to rein in militants
behind attacks on Israelis in a 31-month-old uprising.
The police said that is was an attack by a suicide bomber
who blew himself up at the entrance of a pub called Mike's
Place near the U.S. embassy.
Rescue workers said there were at least three bodies at
the scene, one of them apparently the bomber, and that up to
49 people were being treated.
Footage of the scene showed medics treating several young
Israelis, their shirts stripped off, on the sidewalk outside
the pub.
The entrance of the pub was ripped apart by the blast
which twisted the metal supports of its front windows and
splattered the threshold with blood. The bar's sign "Mike's
Place -- Blues by the Beach," remained intact.
The advisor to the Prime Minister Dore Gold called the
attack the first test of the new Palestinian government and
said that "so far it is an utter failure."
An armed faction of President Yasser Arafat's Fatah
movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP) claimed responsibility for that explosion, the first
attack in Israel in nearly a month.
The Hamas spokesman Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi said that it is
all about "defending our people and fighting for them."
"We are still under occupation and we are defending our
people. The Israelis today murdered four Palestinians and are
still occupying our land, the are occupying our holy place and
humiliating us, so we are defending our people. And we will
continue the resistance."
Ambulances swiftly at Telhashomer hospital where the
wounded were treated in make-shift wards.
One eye-witness, Guy Kzovsky, described the scene:
"I was inside, near the entrance. I was with a friend. And
then there was an explosion, a small one. I got up. With
everyone."
At least 2,012 Palestinians and 734 Israelis have been
killed since the revolt began.
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