- Title: ISRAEL/GAZA/JERUSALEM: TEL AVIV SUICIDE BOMBS, GAZA RAIDS - LATEST.
- Date: 6th January 2003
- Summary: (U2) TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JANUARY 6, 2003) (REUTERS -- ACCESS ALL) 1. GV/MV: AFTERMATH OF EXPLOSION, DAMAGED BUILDING (2 SHOTS) 0.12 2. GV/PAN: OUTSIDE OF CAFE IN TEL AVIV 0.23 3. MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) CAFE OWNER SHMULIK LEVY SAYING: "This was my place. I left two minutes before the bomb and I heard from my car a very loud explosion and I
- Embargoed: 21st January 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL / RAFAH, SOUTHERN GAZA / GAZA / JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA4LW2ZJVGMLMP7JQKXZFT5VJBL
- Story Text: Two Palestinian suicide bombers have killed 23 people
and have wounded more than 100 in Tel Aviv, drawing a
helicopter attack in Gaza City and an Israeli decision to bar
Palestinians from attending a London peace parley.
Israeli government sources said Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon tempered a military response to the back-to-back blasts
in a Tel Aviv foreign workers' neighbourhood, in a bid to
avoid upsetting U.S. efforts to win Arab support for possible
war on Iraq.
The Tel Aviv bombings on Sunday (January 5) came just
three weeks before a general election at which security
concerns will be paramount in the minds of many Israeli
voters, and could smooth right-winger Sharon's bid to regain
power.
Hours after the blasts, at least 14 missiles streaked into
targets in Gaza City that included two metal foundries which
the Israeli army alleged were used to make weapons for
Palestinians in a 27-month-old uprising.
Five people suffered light shrapnel injuries, Palestinian
officials said of the air raid that occurred late on Sunday
(January 5) night when streets were largely empty.
Meeting in an emergency session after one of the most
serious attacks in Tel Aviv since the revolt for statehood
began, Sharon's security cabinet decided to bar Palestinians
from attending two key meetings this month, government sources
said.
They said Israel would stop top Palestinian officials from
travelling to a January 14 conference in London sponsored by
the British government to discuss Middle East peace and
Palestinian Authority reforms demanded by the United States.
Israel would also prevent the Palestinian Central Council
from meeting for the first time in two years on January 9 to
ratify a Palestinian constitution, including a clause
establishing the post of prime minister.
The meeting of one of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation's top bodies was to have been held in the West
Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli forces reoccupied Palestinian
cities after suicide bombings in June.
The militant al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot
of Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the
attacks.
It named the bombers as Boraq Abdel Rahman Halfa and Saber
al-Nouri from the West Bank city of Nablus and said they
struck Tel Aviv in retaliation for demolitions of Palestinian
homes.
Fatah's main political body later issued a statement
saying the names of the two men were not in its "membership
files" and that it condemned acts such as the Tel Aviv
bombing. The Palestinian Authority denounced it as a
"terrorist" attack.
The blasts, two minutes apart, tore through an area near
the old bus station and a crowded mall nearby, leaving bodies
strewn about, shops in ruins and people fleeing in panic from
an area frequented by foreign workers in Israel's biggest
city.
It was the first such attack in Israel for six weeks.
Shmulik Levy, whose café was destroyed in the explosion,
said it wasn't the first time it had happened.
"This was my place. I left two minutes before the bomb and
I heard from my car a very loud explosion and I returned to
the place and saw disaster. A lot of people on the floor and
the place is ruined. This is the second time in one year that
a suicide bomber exploded here," Levy said.
"Happy New Year" read the sign outside Tel Aviv's Station
Cafe, where overturned tables, smashed beer bottles and pieces
of flesh littered the sidewalk.
In what the Israeli army called a continuation of its
battle against terrorism, soldiers detained an Islamic Jihad
militant outside the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah and
destroyed his house. Palestinians said two people were
wounded.
U.S. President George W. Bush denounced the Tel Aviv
attack. "He condemns this in the strongest possible terms,"
spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. "There are those who want to
derail the peace process. But the president will not be
deterred."
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the attack
was one of the worst Israel had seen.
"Yesterday was one of the worst massacres perpetrated by
Palestinian terrorists in Israel. Scores of Israelis and
foreign workers were killed and more than a hundred were
wounded. This is a terrible example of the result of the
incitation on the part of the Palestinian Authority and what
the Palestinians are doing on the ground to carry out the
orders of terror and hatred," Pazner said.
Before the attack, the death toll of those killed since
the Palestinian uprising for statehood started in September
2000, was at least 1,760 Palestinians and 676 Israelis.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None