At Least 7 Killed as Militants Bomb Jerusalem Campus
A powerful bomb hidden in a bag and left on a table by Palestinian militants tore apart a bustling cafeteria during lunch at Hebrew University here today, killing seven people, including at least three Americans, and wounding more than 80.

Because of the campus' diverse student body — it is one of the few enclaves here where Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs still mix — students said they had felt safe, even as new violence threatened the city this week. Arab students were among the wounded, hospital officials said, as were foreign students.

In Washington, the State Department reported the deaths of the three Americans, two women and one man. One victim, Janis Ruth Coulter of New York City, was identified tonight by the American Friends of Hebrew University.

The State Department declined to identify the American victims further as consular officials worked to notify relatives.

An administration official said there might be more Americans among the dead. He gave no further details, except to say that the identification process was continuing. The Israeli consul in Boston, Hillel Newman, told The Boston Globe last night that four Americans had been killed in the attack.

The bombing at the campus, on Mount Scopus, was the second in two days in Jerusalem. The Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying that it acted in retaliation for Israel's killing last week of a top Hamas leader. Fourteen others, including nine children, died in that attack, in which Israel bombed a house in Gaza City.

The attack was unusual in that it appeared not to be the work of a suicide bomber. Police officials said initial investigation suggested that the bomb was hidden in a bag.

The Palestinian Authority, led by Yasir Arafat, issued a statement saying that it "absolutely condemns the attack against Hebrew University" but adding that it blamed Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, for provoking violence.

After back-to-back bombings killed 26 people here more than a month ago, Israel began a ground offensive in the West Bank to suppress Palestinian violence.

But Palestinian militants vowed retaliation after the bombing last week. After five people were injured in the suicide bombing here on Tuesday, Mr. Sharon met senior security advisers before today's attack to discuss ways of coping with suicide bombers, and the group endorsed the idea of deporting members of the killers' families. Tonight, Israeli military officials convened to consider possible retaliation.

Just outside the campus this afternoon, the police detained scores of Arab men, including some who appeared to be students, keeping them standing in the sun for several hours as they searched for suspects.

Representatives of an anti-Palestinian faction arrived at the blast site and unfurled a banner declaring, "It's them or us" and "Expel the Arab enemy." Dror Lederman, 26, a student of economics and accounting, angrily accosted one man. "Get out of here," he said. "You come every time. You come to dance on the blood."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html