Blast Is Israel's Deadliest In 2 Years
A suicide bombing at a crowded restaurant during Passover killed nine people and drew a divided response from the Palestinian Authority a sharp departure from previous governments' immediate condemnations of such attacks.
Hamas, which took control of the Palestinian legislature 2½ weeks ago following its election victory, defended Monday's attack — claimed by a separate Islamic militant group as a legitimate response to Israeli "aggression."
Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the bombing.
The body count and toll of wounded was relatively low because the bomber was stopped by a security guard before he could enter the restaurant, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports.
Hamas has been abiding by a cease-fire signed a year ago, but at the same time it says it will do nothing to halt attacks by militants against Israel.
Pizzey reports that the attack was touted as retaliation for Israeli shelling of areas in the Gaza strip used to fire rockets into Israel — a tactic the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who took office on Monday, says will continue as long as rockets keep being fired at his citizens.
Palestinian officials say Israeli aircraft have fired missiles into a Gaza City metal workshop. The Israeli army says militants had been making homemade rockets there. Palestinians say no one was injured.
The air strike came hours after the Palestinian bomber blew himself up in Tel Aviv.
The moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah party, condemned the bombing and said he had ordered Palestinian security forces to prevent future attacks.
"These kinds of attacks harm the Palestinian interest, and we as an authority and government must move to stop it," Abbas said. "We will not stop pursuing anyone who carries out such attacks."
But because the increasingly powerful Hamas characterized it as "resistance," the attack may well be the beginning of a new round of blood in the streets, Pizzey reports.
The blast went off at about 1:40 p.m. outside the packed "The Mayor's Felafel" restaurant in Tel Aviv's Neve Shaanan district. The restaurant had also been targeted in a January 19 bombing that injured 20 people. The restaurant is in the bustling Neve Shaanan neighborhood near Tel Aviv's central bus station which was crowded with holiday travelers.
A witness, Israel Yaakov, said the blast killed a woman standing near her husband and children, who were slightly wounded.
"The father was traumatized; he went into shock. He ran to the children to gather them up and the children were screaming, 'Mom! Mom!' and she wasn't answering, she was dead already ... it's a shocking scene."
In other developments:
The suicide bombing was the first in Israel since Hamas took over the Palestinian government 2½ weeks ago — and came shortly ahead of a swearing in ceremony in Jerusalem for the new Israeli parliament. It was also the deadliest since August 2004, when twin bombings by Hamas in the Israeli town of Beersheba killed 16 Israelis.
Islamic Jihad identified the bomber as Sami Hammad, 21, from the West Bank village of Arakeh near the town of Jenin. Hammad's family said he had studied social work in a distance-learning program but was forced to quit because of money problems.
In a video released by the group, Hammad said the bombing was dedicated to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. "There are many other bombers on the way," he said. Hammad was dressed in black and wore a headband with yellow Quranic verses.
Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in recent years, has largely observed a truce with Israel for more than a year. Yet in a sharp departure from the previous Palestinian leadership's immediate condemnations of such attacks, Hamas leaders defended the bombing.
"We think that this operation ... is a direct result of the policy of the occupation and the brutal aggression and siege committed against our people," said Khaled Abu Helal, spokesman for the Hamas-led Interior Ministry.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir said Israel held Hamas ultimately responsible for such attacks because it is "giving support to all the other terrorist organizations."
"From our point of view it doesn't matter if it comes from Al Aqsa, Islamic Jihad or Hamas. They all come out of the same school of terrorism led by Hamas," he said.
It was the second major Passover bombing in four years. In 2002, a Palestinian bomber blew himself up at a hotel in the coastal town of Netanya, killing 29 people. That attack triggered a major Israeli military offensive.
A witness, 62-year-old Sonya Levy, said she had just finished shopping when the blast went off.
"I was about to get into my car, and boom, there was an explosion. A bit of human flesh landed on my car and I started to scream," she said. Her car was 50 yards from the explosion, and its windshield was smeared with blood.
The blast shattered the windshields of cars, and blew out the windows of nearby buildings. Glass shards and blood splattered the ground. The sign of the restaurant's building was blown away. Bottles and other debris were scattered up to 25 yards from the site of the blast.
Police searched for a vehicle that left the scene shortly before the blast. Later Monday, police stopped a car with three suspected Palestinian accomplices in the West Bank. The bomb squad examined the car, police said.
On Sunday, the exiled leader of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, said the militant group was making "nonstop efforts" to infiltrate suicide bombers from the West Bank into Israel. "The nonstop crackdown against our resistance might limit this effort, but it's not going to stop it," he said in a statement posted on the group's Web site.
Shallah made his comments while attending an anti-Israel conference in Iran.
Palestinian militants have carried out nine suicide attacks in Israel and the West Bank since a Feb. 8, 2005, truce declaration. All but one attack have been carried out by Islamic Jihad.