A bomb blast has ripped through a bus in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing at least 12 people. Dozens of people were wounded in the explosion, which police said was caused by a Palestinian suicide bomber. The bus was reportedly packed with students from a nearby university when the blast happened. It is the first bomb attack in Israel since January, when 22 people were killed in a double suicide attack in Tel Aviv. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest attack.
| As of about a half hour ago, Hamas was praising the attack, but not taking credit for it. Al-Aqsa said yesterday that they were stopping attacks within the Green Line, so I guess that'd make them prime suspects on the assumption they prefer lying through their teeth to telling the truth on any subject. But my guess would be Hamas, since Mohammad Taha was arrested a couple days ago, and Dire Revenge® is obviously called for. |
Haifa, a mixed Israeli-Arab city close to Israel's border with the West Bank, has frequently been targeted by Palestinian militants in the past. A spokesman for the Israeli ambulance service told the BBC that 12 people were confirmed dead.
Deathtoll is now 15+, and at least 30 wounded.
Reports say the bus had stopped on the city's main Moriah Boulevard in the Carmelia district when it blew up. The driver of another bus travelling behind said he saw "the back of the bus fly into the air, and the windows blew out and a great cloud of dust covered the bus". Television footage of the scene showed smoke rising from the burnt and mangled wreckage of the bus, which had lost its roof in the attack. Haifa police chief Yaacov Borovsky said bodies and wreckage were strewn across the street. Shopowner Ronen Levy said: "I suddenly heard a huge explosion and all the lights in my beauty parlour broke. I am still in shock." Some casualties were treated at the scene while others were evacuated.
| All the usual horrors. I'm always surprised when the Paleostinians' lips don't fall off when they proclaim that they're not terrorists... |
Israeli Government spokesman Ranaan Gissin blamed the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the attack. He said it showed the PA had taken "no action whatsoever to stop terrorism".
But Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat rejected the Israeli Government's "finger pointing that the Palestinian Authority is responsible".
| If you're not responsible, why do you refer to yourselves as an "Authority"? And pick up your lips... |
Toldja so...
A suicide bomber set off a powerful explosion that destroyed a suburban bus in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa Wednesday, killing at least 15 Israelis and badly wounding at least 40, Israeli police said. The militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Sources inside the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas told CNN that its military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, was responsible. Hamas spokesman Mahmoud a-Zahar lauded the attack. |