By Ha'aretz Staff

At least 23 people were killed and 100 others wounded in a double suicide bombing at 6:33 P.M. yesterday in the old central bus station in south Tel Aviv. It was the third time in less than a year that terrorists have targeted this neighborhood where mostly foreign workers and poor people live, but which is a major crossing point through the city for people using public transport.

As of last night, eight people were still in critical condition in hospitals.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened a security meeting at 11:30 P.M. with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Silvan Shalom and Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, along with the heads of the security establishment, to consider Israel's response.

Late last night, Channel Two was reporting IDF helicopters striking targets in Gaza. However, with the IDF already occupying all the Palestinian cities of the West Bank and much of the countryside, and since Sharon has promised the U.S. that Israel "will not harm" Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, no dramatic change in policy was expected last night.

Security sources said that with the U.S. building up to an attack on Iraq, the timing was "problematic" for expelling Arafat, whom the government still blames for the terrorism. Military analysts said any dramatic move would also require a reservist callup, something the government is loathe to do so close to election day on January 28.

Arafat issued a statement condemning the attack and promising to arrest those responsible.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2003

Answers

The attack was the first suicide bombing in an Israeli city since November, when a terrorist blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing himself and 11 passengers. On July 17, 2002, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to the Neve Sha'anan Quarter, killing three people and wounding 40 others. On January 25, 2002, 32 people were wounded in a suicide blast on Neve Sha'anan Street.

Police were searching last night for a black Honda Civic that was reported by eyewitnesses to have sped away from the scene of the attack - but they conceded that reports of cars leaving the scene of a terrorist attack for the direction of the West Bank are quite common. The Honda was said to be carrying two Palestinians.

The response across the political spectrum was tinged with electioneering. Public Security Deputy Minister Gideon Ezra of the Likud said "the Arabs are exploiting the fact we are trying to make their lives easier by lifting the curfews - which enables the terrorists to infiltrate."

Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, MK, and Yossi Beilin, the new Meretz candidate for the Knesset, were in Cairo in a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher at the time of the blast. Maher cut short the meeting to issue a vehement condemnation, while Sarid and Beilin said "this damnable terror is what brought us to visit Cairo to discuss with the Egyptian administration how to end this bloody journey. We, like the Egyptians are determined to fight terror not only with force but through political means. Only with both methods can terror be defeated."

The two suicide bombers - both from Nablus, said the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which claimed responsibility for the attack - blew themselves up within less than a minute of one another, at the corner of G'dud Ha'ivri and Neve She'anan streets at the two ends of a pedestrian promenade lined with small pubs and shops frequented by local residents.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2003

It was the first attack inside Israel in more than a month, and the worst inside the Green Line since the Passover Seder suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, which killed 29 and prompted the army's Operation Defensive Shield to reoccupy most of the West Bank.

Many of the dead and wounded were foreign workers, and the Interior Ministry issued a statement saying nobody seeking medical aid would become subject to expulsion or arrest. Interior Minister Eli Yishai promised temporary visas for the wounded and their families who are not legally in Israel.

A reporter for Lebanon's Al-Manar television station first reported that Islamic Jihad had phoned him to take responsibility for the attack, but a Damascus-based official in the Palestinian group said there had been no official statement.

Later in the evening the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, took responsibility. In a statement claiming that it was behind the bombings, the group identified the two bombers as Nablus residents Burak Hilsa and Samar A-Nuri. "The two martyrs managed to cross all the Zionist army roadblocks and reached the heart of Tel Aviv. One blew his pure body up at the old central bus station, and the other blew himself up in another nearby street," the message said.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2003