An armed wing of Islamic resistance movement Hamas claimed responsibility Thursday evening for a suicide bombing in the morning that killed an elderly woman and wounded some 30 other Israelis who stopped to help him.
The incident began when a man was apparently injured after he just missed boarding a bus north of Tel Aviv. Witnesses said he tried to board the bus through the rear as it pulled from a station, but the driver shut the door and the man fell and was motionless.
"We shouted to the driver to stop, to help the wounded man. We didn't know it was a terrorist," passenger Miriam Salem said. The man indeed turned out to be the bomber.
A bystander tried to resuscitate the man and another passenger placed a bandage under his head, passenger Yael Ben-Zur related. But then they opened the man's shirt and saw the suicide belt.
The driver and another man grabbed the militant's hands to keep him from detonating the charge and people on the bus tried to move away form the man.
"We gave everybody time to run away and when we were alone with him and he began to move his legs, and signaled he wanted to get up, we became afraid that we would explode with him," driver Baruh Neuman said.
The Israelis released the man and moved away. The militant was able to get up and walked toward the passengers. He then set off what is estimated to have been an 11-pound bomb packed with small metal balls. A 71-year-old woman who lived in Ramat Gan was killed along with the bomber.
Hamas declined identifying the attacker, but a spokesman for Israeli police said he was Rafik Hamad, 31, a father of four from the West Bank village of Hablah near Qaliqilya.
Hamas said in a leaflet signed by its armed wing Izel Dein Al Qassam that the suicide bombing is "the fourth of a series of attacks that Hamas took the responsibility to carry out against Israel." The anti-Israel group rejects Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's request to stop suicide bombing attacks against civilians.
"These attacks come to revenge for the blood of its commander Salah Shehada and all the martyrs of Palestine, especially the 17 that were killed in Khan Younis on Monday," said the leaflet, referring to an Israeli rocket attack and other clashes earlier this week. "We tell the criminal (Ariel) Sharon and his stupid gangs that they would pay the price very high for the siege, the closure and the murder they practice against our people."
At the Palestinian Authority headquarters a top aide to Arafat said the Israeli military actions and operations practiced against the Palestinian people "are the major reason for the continuation of the ongoing violence and tension." Nabil Abu Rudeineh's reaction came in response to an Israeli government official statement saying the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the attack.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Ranteesi told United Press International that the suicide bombing attack "is part of the legal Palestinian self-defense against the Israeli terrorism and part of the movement's strategy to continue resistance."
"Jihad (Holy War) will continue as long as the occupation of our lands keeps going on," said Ranteesi.
For its part, the U.S. State Department condemned the violence.
"As we've said before, terror and violence have no place in this region, and undermine Palestinian national aspirations," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The incident occurred several days after security men killed a suicide bomber who was heading toward Israel from the northern West Bank.
Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians -- an 18-year-old and a 12-year-old -- in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip after hand grenades where thrown at the Israelis. Israeli officials said their troops were involved in an operation against "terrorist infrastructure" in the town and destroyed five houses. They said they also discovered two tunnels used for smuggling arms from Egypt.
When asked if the United States had asked Israel not to make further incursions into the Palestinian territories, Boucher said: "Israel needs to act with care and also take steps to prevent a recurrence of tragic incidents such as occurred recently in Gaza, and to refrain from actions that only inflame tensions."
(Saud Abu Ramadan reported from Gaza and Joshua Brilliant from Tel Aviv, with contributions from Krishnadev Calamur in Washington.)
