Thursday, July 18, 2002

In the same four weeks, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israeli soldiers killed 40 Palestinians, at least 22 of them unarmed civilians.

3 Dead After Tel Aviv Bombing
Two Palestinian suicide bombers killed three people here tonight, a day after a West Bank bus ambush that took eight Israeli lives. The attacks have shattered a period of calm that began nearly a month ago when Israeli troops took over the West Bank.

The renewed attacks shook the faith of Israelis in the government's tactics and brought angry responses from officials.

The attacks tonight occurred almost simultaneously. Two young men blew themselves up near Tel Aviv's old central bus station, in a low-income neighborhood with a mostly immigrant population of Romanians, Nigerians, Filipinos and Thais who have flocked here in recent years to replace Palestinians doing menial jobs for Israelis.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks.

It appeared likely that the bombers chose the neighborhood because a religious holiday had shut down most of the city and they had difficulty finding a target. Tonight was the beginning of Tisha b'Av, the Jewish commemoration of the destruction of the Temples of Solomon and Herod. Even in Tel Aviv, a secular city, fines had been ordered for restaurants staying open.

Uzi Landau, the minister of public security, visited the scene and called for a stepped-up campaign to destroy the Palestinian Authority.

"We will enter their areas," he said, "and break up the entire Palestinian security apparatus to bring about the collapse of the Palestinian Authority."

This morning, authorities were still pursuing ambushers of an armored bus that had been headed on Tuesday for a West Bank Jewish settlement, Immanuel. A young Israeli officer and a Palestinian man died in a running two-hour gun battle early this morning in the rocky hills of the northern West Bank.

In the Ramallah refugee camp tonight, two Palestinians were killed and several were injured in an explosion. Palestinians theorized that it was a tank shell; the army suggested it was a bomb-maker's mistake.

The attack on the bus at Immanuel, described by the army as well planned and executed, ended a period of uneasy calm that had lasted since June 20, when Israeli troops moved in force into seven of eight West Bank cities after back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem. The army has imposed strict curfews, keeping more than 700,000 Palestinians confined to their homes, allowing them outside only briefly to buy food and medicine. In the same four weeks, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israeli soldiers killed 40 Palestinians, at least 22 of them unarmed civilians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html

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