Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Bomb Explodes at Palestinian School, Hurting 5 Children
The school here stands on a hilltop, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, half a mile from the site of two shooting attacks on July 26 in which four settlers were killed, including a 9-year-old boy. The area is under Israeli security control.

The funerals of the Jewish victims on July 28 set off a rampage by settlers in Hebron, in which a 14-year old Palestinian girl was shot dead, several Palestinians were wounded, and Israeli photographers were beaten. The Jews in Hebron and in settlements south of it are regarded as among the most ideologically militant of the settlers.

The headmaster of the Zif school — a simple concrete two-story building attended by about 350 boys and girls ages 6 to 16 — said the bomb went off about 9:45 a.m. next to the outdoor bathrooms and the girls' drinking fountains. Stones, screws and dust smashed through windows, leaving debris scattered across the courtyard.

The headmaster, Yussef Abed Rabbo, said the children had recess scheduled at 10:25 a.m., when many of them would have been at the bathrooms and drinking fountains.

Mr. Abed Rabbo said he went out after the blast and saw a suspicious bag near the site of the first explosion.

That bag later proved to be a second bomb, which Israeli bomb-demolition experts later set off.

At a nearby Palestinian house, 6-year-old Ahmad Hushiya lay on a mattress with a bandage on his head and a gash on his leg. The first grader, who has started school only recently, had gone out for a drink and was walking away when the bomb went off.

His mother, Salwua Hushiya, said the explosion shook their house, and everybody from the surrounding area rushed to the school. "I was sure something had happened to Ahmad," she said. "I was screaming. People were yelling."

In April, the Israeli police arrested six settlers, including militant settlers from Hebron, who are accused of planting bombs in Arab schools in Jerusalem.

In the first episode, on March 5, the headmaster of a school in southern Jerusalem spotted suspicious objects in the playground and herded the students away just before they exploded.

Then in April, the Israeli police intercepted two settlers in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem unhooking a trailer near a girls' school. It was found to contain a powerful bomb set to go off at 7:35 a.m., when students arrived at the school.

Today also marked two anniversaries — one noted by the Israelis and the other by the Palestinians.

For the Israelis, it was the 29th anniversary of the 1973 Middle East war, also known as the Yom Kippur war, in which Israel came under surprise attack from Egypt and Syria, assisted by other Arab nations.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a hero of that war, said the lesson to learn was: "This is the Middle East. There is no mercy for any sign of weakness or restraint on the breach of agreements."

For the Palestinians, it was the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, in which Lebanese Phalangists entered Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and slaughtered several hundred people. An Israeli commission found Mr. Sharon, then defense minister, indirectly responsible for failing to anticipate the Phalangist violence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html

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