ISRAEL/JERUSALEM: A PALESTINIAN SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED THREE PEOPLE AT A BUS STOP NEAR TEL AVIV

Record ID: 358755

  • Title: ISRAEL/JERUSALEM: A PALESTINIAN SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED THREE PEOPLE AT A BUS STOP NEAR TEL AVIV
  • Date: 25th December 2003
  • Summary: (W6) PETAH TIKVA, ISRAEL (DECEMBER 25, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. LV VIEW OF THE BLAST SITE 0.05 2. SLV POLICE CHECKING BLAST SITE 0.09 3. PAN AMBULANCES AND POLICE CARS AT BLAST SITE 0.20 4. TOP VIEW OF BLAST SITE 0.25 5. TV POLICE NEXT TO BUS STOP 0.28 (W7) PETAH TIKVA, ISRAEL (DECEMBER 25, 2003) (REUTERS) 6. SV
  • Embargoed: 9th January 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PETAH TIKVA, ISRAEL/ JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA3OSCDKBDQNB7Z0VOX0EDKYP59
  • Story Text: A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself
    up at a bus stop outside Tel Aviv on Thursday, killing at least
    three people and wounding 16.




    A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three people at
    a bus stop near Tel Aviv on Thursday (December 25) minutes
    after Israeli helicopters killed a top Islamic militant and
    at least four people in Gaza.

    The attacks shattered more than two months of relative
    calm that had spurred efforts to revive talks between
    Israelis and Palestinians on a U.S.-led plan for ending
    more than three years of conflict.

    The militant Popular Front for the Liberation of
    Palestine claimed responsibility.

    "This is the first operation in a series of
    retaliations. We swear to make an earthquake in the Zionist
    entity," a PFLP statement said, referring to a deadly
    Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Nablus last week. It
    described Thursday's blast as a "martyrdom operation," a
    standard term for suicide bombings.

    Israel's police chief said the bomber killed three
    other people and wounded 16 in the blast at the bus stop
    near Petah Tikva, on a highway leading out of Israel's
    coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv.

    "Originally we thought there were two explosive sites,
    as the explosion was heard people were seen running. The
    indication we got is that there would be another terror
    event across the street, and it turned out that it was just
    people running from the scene, afraid from the scene. The
    three last months have been fairly quiet for us as far as
    the police force, as far as the success of the suicide
    bombers concern," Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said.

    Two bodies lay under blankets and blood spattered the
    ground. The explosion reduced the bus stop to a skeletal
    frame and brought rush hour traffic on one of Israel's
    busiest roads to a stop.

    In the last big suicide attack in Israel, on October 4,
    a Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowded
    beach restaurant in the city of Haifa, killing 23 other
    people.

    Palestinian militants have so far rebuffed efforts by
    Egypt to secure a ceasefire with Israel and revive the
    U.S.-backed "road map" meant to lead to Palestinian state
    by 2005.

    Israel has used helicopters to track and kill dozens of
    militants waging a three-year-old Palestinian uprising, but
    Thursday's strike was the first such attack on Gaza for
    more than two months.



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