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DonUSA
5/27/2002 (21:49) |
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A woman in her sixties and her year-old baby granddaughter were killed, and some 40 people were wounded, including the baby's parents, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a cafe in a Petah Tikva mall yesterday evening.
The names of the dead were not released at press time.
The terrorist, from Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, detonated his bomb among dozens of people, many of them mothers and children, at the cafe in the Em Hamoshavot strip mall.
Five of the wounded were in serious condition, including a three-year-old girl.
Police said the bomb used by the suicide bomber contained around 10 kilograms of explosives, packed with metal objects to maximize the number of casualties.
Fatah-Tanzim's Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued on Hizbullah's Manar television station broadcasting from Lebanon.
The statement said, 'We will not stop our operations as long as the occupation continues in our land.'
There had been warnings of terrorist attacks in the Sharon district and the North, but there had been no specific alert relating to Petah Tikva.
Eyewitnesses said there was a powerful explosion, and fragments from the device were thrown as far as 50 meters.
The fact that it occurred in an open area full of people raised questions about the ability to protect such places. Police stressed that the number of casualties would have been far worse had the suicide bomber blown himself up in an enclosed space.
The attack followed recent bombings in Rishon Lezion and Netanya, and abortive attacks in the North, at the Pi Glilot fuel and cooking gas storage facility, and in Jerusalem yesterday morning.
Security sources said that although many attacks have been thwarted, the terrorist organizations are highly motivated, and it appears there is no alternative but to return to the kind of deployment that was in force prior to Operation Defensive Shield.
Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau, who went to the scene, said there will not be peace and quiet even after the construction of a proposed security fence unless the IDF erases the terrorist infrastructure within PA-controlled areas.
'We have a strategic problem with the Palestinian Authority, with its power structure and educational system that teaches sending young children to blow themselves up among us,' Landau, told reporters at the scene. He said the eight-year-old PA should be 'completely disarmed.'
Diplomatic sources reported that Sharon is continuing the current doctrine under which the IDF enters PA-controlled areas to do the job that the PA was supposed to do under the Oslo Accords crack down on terrorism.
According to senior security sources, IDF incursions into Area A to capture wanted terrorists and thwart attacks will intensify in response to recent attacks.
The attack in Petah Tikva occurred around 6:40 p.m., after the suicide bomber crossed the Green Line. Initial reports said that a car, believed to have transported the terrorist, was seen fleeing the scene, prompting a police pursuit involving roadblocks and a helicopter.
Another report, however, said that the terrorist may have arrived at the scene on a motorcycle.
Police Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky, who also came to the scene, said inquiries are in the initial stage, and it was not known how the terrorist entered Israel or whether he was given assistance.
Aharonishky said there was supposed to be security at the open air mall, but the guard had apparently been elsewhere at the time.
Sharon district police chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco said there had been guards at the supermarket in the shopping complex, but not outside all the smaller businesses and cafes.
'The Super Center [supermarket] was supposed to have a security guard, but the other businesses are small and the place itself is open,' said Franco.
'There was no pinpoint warning about [a terror attack] in Petah Tikva or the Sharon district. The warnings were and are general, and our deployment was in accordance with this throughout the district, in the towns and cities, and along the Green Line,' he said.
The area was sealed off as sappers and bomb-sniffing dogs carried out intensive searches for other explosive devices. They smashed the windows of parked cars to be able to check there were no bombs inside.
MDA paramedics treated casualties at the scene and evacuated them in a fleet of ambulances to hospitals in the region, including the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson and Hasharon Campuses in the city, Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, and Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba. Some of the younger among the wounded were later transferred to the Schneider Children's Medical Center for Israel, also in Petah Tikva.
The IDF's incursions into Area A will increase and intensify as terrorist attacks increase and intensify, a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said last night, following the attack.
'If Arafat doesn't stop the attacks, we will have to do so,' the official said. He said Israel will do what it takes to 'keep the terrorists on the run' and make it more difficult to carry out attacks.
As has been the case following each of the attacks over the last two weeks, the cabinet neither met nor responded to yesterday's suicide attack. The official said such meetings are unnecessary, since the security cabinet has already approved IDF responses to the suicide bombings.
Since Operation Defensive Shield ended last month, Israel has thwarted some 40 suicide attacks, and the official said this is the result of information gathered during the operation and the subsequent active pursue of terrorists.
'The fact is we are catching most of the suicide bombers before they can carry out their attacks,' the official said. 'This is because we are sitting on their tails.'
The official said that last night's attack was carried out by the Tanzim, whose members are on Arafat's payroll.
'He has full control, but is doing nothing,' the official said of Arafat. 'He talks reform and does nothing to implement it. It is more of the same duplicity.'
The official said that Arafat is the obstacle to any reform in the PA, and that the PA will not make a committed effort to stop violence until he no longer controls the PA's security apparatus or finances.
The official said Israel does not believe that 'half-baked' reforms will solve the problem, and that as long as Arafat supports terrorism, creating a unified command structure won't make much of a difference.
The PA condemned the bombing attack. A statement said its leadership considers it 'harmful.' 'The Palestinian leadership, which together with the Palestinian people is under continued Israeli aggression, condemns the terrorist attack that targeted Israeli civilians in Petah Tikva,' the PA said in a statement.
'It considers this attack harmful to our cause and struggle, and to the image of the Palestinian people before international public opinion,' said the statement, which rejected Israeli accusations that the Authority had a hand in suicide attacks.
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yisrael Lau visited the wounded in hospital last night, expressing his horror over the attack. Lau said he sees no hope, unless Muslim leaders begin condemning suicide bombings.
In the Balata refugee camp next to Nablus, several Al Aksa gunmen fired in the air in celebration and said the operation was in retaliation for Israel's killing of Al Aksa leader Mahmud Titi in a shelling last week.
Palestinians identified the bomber as Jihad Titi, 18, a cousin of the dead leader. However, the Al Aksa claim did not mention his name. It would illustrate the increasing involvement of teenagers in suicide bomb attacks.
Hussein Sheikh, a prominent West Bank Fatah leader reacted to the suicide bomb attack in Petah Tikva tonight by saying, 'The one who bears the responsibility for that is Sharon, who says everyday that Operation Defensive Shield will continue against the PA and the Palestinian people.'
Sheikh added 'Israel got used to Arafat baring responsibility over any attack that comes in the framework of the legal resistance for the Palestinian people.'
PA intelligence chief Amin Hindi said the murder of Israelis is a 'big mistake' and urged all Palestinian groups to stop attacks against Israel.
'The murder of Israeli civilians is a big mistake,' he said at a news conference in the Gaza Strip. 'There is one authority, and any weapons outside the authority are not legal.'
UN envoy Terje Larsen issued a statement saying that 'such attacks cannot be endured, and must stop.'
Matthew Gutman, Mohammed Najib, and news agencies contributed to this report.
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