Children hurt in fatal bus blast

KFAR DAROM - A bomb exploded in front of an Israeli school bus yesterday, killing two adults and wounding others, including children from a Jewish settlement in the largely Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.

Medical relief workers said that at least four children were among the nine wounded in the first fatal roadside bomb attack on Jewish settlers in Gaza in almost two months of clashes with Palestinians seeking independence.

Israel's Army Radio said the bus had some protection and the blast was about 70m in front of it but was strong enough to harm the children.

Witnesses said several pieces of shrapnel went through the bus and the floor was stained with blood.

Dozens of Jewish settlers gathered around the bus to mourn and pray, saying they would not go until Prime Minister Ehud Barak came to the scene.

Barak, who was due to visit Gaza later in the day, expressed shock and vowed the Government would "respond in accordance with developments" after an emergency meeting of the security cabinet.

The Army said the attack would not go unanswered.

"It's an inhumane attack," said Army spokesman Major Yarden Vatikay. "It's an attack in which a huge bomb exploded next to a bus taking children from Kfar Darom settlement going south."

Israel has sent helicopter gunships to rocket Palestinian targets after previous guerrilla attacks or to make what it calls pre-emptive strikes to prevent such raids.

A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinian Authority was not responsible for the attack and rejected the violence. The attack occurred on a southern Gaza road under Israeli security control.

"The Palestinian Authority rejects acts of violence, regardless of their source," the official said, adding that President Yasser Arafat would hold an urgent meeting of his higher security council and investigate the incident.

A radical Palestinian group based in Damascus said its Omar al-Mukhtar fighting units had carried out the bomb attack.

The blast took the death toll to 243 in the clashes between Israeli troops and the Palestinians, who regard Jewish settlers who live on occupied land as legitimate targets. Most of the dead have been Palestinians and one in four of them has been a teenager.

Israel Radio said the dead were a man and woman who had been accompanying the children to school.

Vatikay said the bus had a military escort and was armour-plated, but the blast had been strong enough to injure people inside.

"I heard a strong explosion behind us, a cloud of smoke, and afterwards when we saw the bus go on its way, we hoped there would be no casualties," said Asher Mivtzari, a Jewish witness from Kfar Darom.

"This reality cries to the heavens because this isn't the first bomb in Gaza. We have had dozens of bombs in this area that only through a miracle didn't end in casualties."

Israeli Colonel Pini Levy, deputy commander of the Gaza Division, told Israel Radio: "The people who activated the device were under cover, hidden, and activated the device from a distance from the road. The escape was quick, in the direction of Palestinian-controlled territory."

Israel has heightened security and issued warnings of guerrilla attacks in a conflict pitting the region's most powerful Army against protesters armed mainly with rocks, firebombs and guns.

A car bomb killed two Israelis in Jerusalem on November 2 and a suicide bomber drove his bicycle into a wall near an Army post in Gaza on October 26, slightly injuring a soldier.

The funeral was held in Tel Aviv yesterday of an Israeli soldier, killed at the weekend when a lone Palestinian policeman attacked an isolated Army post in Gaza.

Also yesterday, Israelis shot dead three Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy.

In Jordan, a gunman slightly wounded Israel's Vice-Consul in Amman, Yoram Havivian. Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Lebanese civilian who was throwing stones across a border fence between the two countries.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Middle East

Backgrounder: Holy city in grip of past

Map

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

Israel Wire

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process