By The Associated Press Tuesday, January 7, 2003

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A seedy, rundown neighborhood housing East European, African and Asian laborers who've replaced Palestinian workers in Israel has been hit by Palestinian bombers for the third time in a year, and many residents wonder why they're being targeted.

Blasts from two suicide bombers tore up a Chinese take-out restaurant and several shops and filled these narrow, hard-luck streets — where many illegal workers hide out from police — with another kind of fear. The powerful explosions, just seconds apart on parallel streets, killed 22 bystanders.

Migrant laborers watched crews clean up the debris Monday and asked how they got caught up in this Mideast battle.

A 26-year-old Nigerian, who refused to give his name for fear that police would find him and deport him, said, "Some people say they (Palestinians) are mad because we are taking their jobs."

Israel started bringing in foreign workers in the early 1990s, when Palestinian laborers were often barred from leaving the West Bank and Gaza Strip after terror attacks. In the decade since, their numbers have grown steadily.

Others thought the pedestrian walkway — lined with international phone call shacks, restaurants, sidewalk pubs and peep shows — is a target simply because it's packed with people.

Ely Karmon of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism said Palestinians were attacking the area because they could easily blend in.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2003

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-- Anonymous, January 07, 2003