JERUSALEM, 1 September 2004 — Palestinian attackers blew up two buses seconds apart in Beersheba yesterday, killing at least 16 passengers and wounding more than 80. Hamas claimed responsibility for both blasts but did not name the attackers.
Israeli radio reports tentatively identified one of the bombers as Ahmed Qawasmeh from the West Bank city of Hebron, the closest Palestinian city to Beersheba, and soldiers later went to his home to question relatives.
“If you thought that the martyrdom of our leaders would weaken our missions and discourage us from Jihad, then you are dreaming,” a leaflet distributed by Hamas in Hebron said.
The bombings were the first since March 14, when suicide attackers killed 10 people in the port of Ashdod after hiding in a container transported there from Gaza.
The bombers boarded the buses at the same stop near Beersheba’s central bus station and detonated hidden explosive belts when the two vehicles were only a few dozen meters apart, triggering blasts that wrecked the buses and sent smoke pouring into the sky.
“I was thrown into the air and saw nothing but red around me,” Eli Oren, a badly wounded 50-year-old, told television crews in a Beersheba hospital.
Medics pulled the limp form of a young woman through the shattered window of one bus and put it into a black body bag as other emergency workers rushed to the spot to collect pieces of flesh in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, visiting Alexandria, condemned the bombings. “Killing civilians, whether from the Palestinian side or from the Israeli side, will achieve nothing except hatred and more enmity and therefore we condemn it strongly,” he said.
Both the European Union and the White House joined Qorei in condemning the attacks. Such violence “seriously undermines all efforts to find a solution to the Middle East conflict,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a statement.
The head of the Council of Europe also denounced the attacks and called on the organization’s 45 member nations to push for peace in the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said there would be no let-up in his government’s “fight against terrorism”. “We have to fight terror: That is what my government is doing,” he told reporters after the attack.
“The struggle against terror will be pursued to the fullest extent,” he added.
Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, speaking at the scene of the blast, said it appeared that the attackers had managed to enter Israel from the southern West Bank where the massive separation barrier being built across the territory has yet to be started.
— Additional input from agencies
