Israel Bombing Rattles Nerves
As Israeli police closed in, a suspected Palestinian militant detonated a bomb in a taxi van Thursday, killing one Israeli, injuring nine people and reigniting debate on how Israel should respond to terror attacks.
CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger reports the blast went off about 2 miles from the Israeli Arab town of Umm el-Fahem.
The badly injured Palestinian suspect was flown by an Israeli helicopter to a hospital. Prime Minister Ehud Barak said the blast appeared linked to an attempted attack Wednesday in central Tel Aviv, where a bomb at a food stall was discovered and safely exploded.
At the scene near the northern Israeli town of Mei Ami, Israeli police dragged one badly injured man from the back of the crumpled van, stripped him to his underwear, and placed him on a stretcher in the street. Police armed with automatic rifles watched over him for several minutes before medical help arrived.
TV footage of the explosion's aftermath showed the Palestinian militant suspect being taken away. The man had blood on his face and hands, as police tried to talk to him.
His identity was not immediately clear. The suspect was believed to be a resident of the West Bank, according to police, and may have activated the explosives with a cell phone, according to Israeli media reports. None of the main Palestinian groups claimed responsibility.
Rescuers also bandaged the injured leg of a seeing-eye dog, whose trainer was among the injured passengers in the van.
The taxi's passengers — and the list of injured — included both Arabs and Jews.
Police said they were searching for the suspect after receiving information he was at large in northern Israel, possibly with explosives. Several surprise checkpoints were quickly set up.
When the taxi van stopped at a roadblock, police were checking the ID papers of the passengers, when "the terrorist apparently set off the bomb," said Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki.
"A policeman stopped us and asked for identity cards. Then I heard a loud boom," a woman who had been traveling in the vehicle said from her hospital bed. She said an Arab had been sitting in the back of the van.
The blast ripped part of the roof off the van and shattered windshields of nearby cars on a main highway.
"I heard a loud explosion … I saw body parts, someone's hand," said truck driver Daniel Grosser, an eyewitness.
The Israeli man who was killed, and seven of the nine wounded, were in the van, said police, who blocked the surrounding streets, backing up traffic for several miles. Two people near the site of the blast were also hurt.
Witness Ilan Zvuluni said he was a few car lengths behind the van when the explosion went off.
"I saw wounded people lying on road, a boy among them," he said.
"The goal was to kill as many as possible," said deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, adding it was too early to tell which group was responsile although he suspected it was an Islamic militant faction.
The blast was the first major incident since Feb. 14, when a Palestinian driver smashed a bus into a crowd of Israeli soldiers and commuters at a bus stop in the central Israeli town of Azur, killing eight people.
Anti-Israeli attacks have increased inside Israel since the outbreak more than five months ago of a Palestinian uprising for independence in the adjacent West Bank and Gaza Strip in which more than 400 people, most of them Palestinians, have died.
In recent weeks, Israel has been on heightened alert for bomb attacks by Islamic militants. On Wednesday, Tel Aviv police safely detonated a bomb of more than four pounds that had been spotted by a passer-by in an abandoned plastic bag.
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