OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 5 August — A Palestinian yesterday blew himself up inside a packed rush-hour bus in northern Israel, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens. Hours later, a Palestinian teenager opened fire on an Israeli truck in East Jerusalem. The boy and two other people were killed in the attack and the ensuing shootout with police. Elsewhere in the occupied territories, there was a rash of attacks on Israeli targets that left scores wounded.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel had suspended planned talks this week with Palestinian officials on security and easing hardships in West Bank cities under curfew.
The powerful blast on a Galilee country road tore through the bus crowded with civilians and soldiers returning to base in the morning rush hour at the start of the Israeli working week. “I went to the door to get off and just then there was an explosion. I felt a ball of fire in the face and parts of people flew by,” Boaz Altshuler, who was wounded, told Israeli TV. Witnesses and rescue workers said the inferno blazed for 10 minutes before firefighters arrived. Bits of clothing, army uniforms and bags littered the ground.
In a statement issued in Gaza, Hamas said it had carried out the bombing in further revenge for an Israeli air raid on July 22 that killed its military commander Salah Shehada, his deputy and 13 other Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the bus attack, but said in a statement that Israel’s policy of “mass detentions, repressive measures and home demolitions” was responsible for the cycle of violence.
US President George W. Bush urged all nations to help end anti-Israeli attacks, saying he was distressed by the latest bombing. “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these killers,” he said. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said meetings with the Palestinians were off for now.
Overall, 14 people were killed in the violence from the far north of Israel. They included a Palestinian frogman who was shot dead in a failed raid on a coastal Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
