topic by
Breaking News
7/31/2002 (10:31) |
|
A bombing in a crowded cafeteria at the Mount Scopus campus of Jerusalem's Hebrew University killed at least seven people Wednesday afternoon and injured at least 86, 14 seriously.
Some of those in the cafeteria were foreign students taking summer school classes, including two South Korean students in critical condition at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
The injured were taken to hospitals in the city, but the evacuation efforts were hampered by the location of the attack, inside a building on the campus.
In a statement released to Al-Jazeera Television, Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, denying reports that it was a suicide bombing. Hamas has repeatedly sworn to avenge the assassination last week of its military commander Salah Shehadeh in an IDF air raid that also killed 11 children and a number of adult civilians.
Police believe that the explosive device was planted inside the cafeteria and that the terrorist who did so escaped, Israel Radio reported. 'We're talking about an explosive device, apparently not a suicide bomber,' said Ilan Franco, deputy police chief in Jerusalem.
Dr. Ovadia Shemesh, deputy director of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, said most of the wounded were between the ages of 18 and 30. He said that most of the injuries were from shrapnel and from the collapse of the cafeteria ceiling.
David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, said that 'Israel is fighting a pitched battle against terror and for the right to walk down the street, take a bus or sit in a cafeteria without the fear of being decimated by Palestinian terrorism.'
The Palestinian Authority issued a condemnation of the blast.
Though classes were not in session, students were taking exams at the time of the blast, and the cafeteria, situated in the university's Frank Sinatra building, was crowded with diners. There were also numerous students in the building registering for classes for the coming school year, witnesses said.
'This was one place that I thought was safe,' said a shaken and bloodied survivor of the attack, who identified herself as Anat.
Another eyewitness, Oshrit, said that although there were security personnel in nearly every building, 'The security is not thorough, they check your bag and that's it.'
'At first we didn't know what was happening. The whole building shook,' she said. 'The street was full of smoke and broken glass.'
It was the second bomb attack in the capital in the space of 24 hours. On Tuesday five people were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a felafel stand in downtown Jerusalem, near the border with the city's largely Arab eastern half.
The Mount Scopus campus is adjacent to the West Bank, and is close to Arab neighborhoods of the holy city. Israel Radio reported that the student newspaper recently reported on the possibility of infiltrating the campus from the nearby Palestinian village of Issawiya via the botanical garden at the university.
|
|