A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in Jerusalem yesterday, killing at least 10 bystanders and wounding about 30 in an attack outside Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's official residence, police and paramedics said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The explosion coincided with a German-brokered prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. It was not clear whether there was a connection.
The attack also came a day after Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians in the deadliest raid in the Gaza Strip in more than a month.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, vowed revenge for the raid in Gaza City, saying five of their fighters were among those killed in fierce gun battles. Medics said the other dead were civilians, but Israel said all were armed "terrorists."
"The bloody message has been received ... and the Palestinian people will know how to respond to it," Mohammed al-Hindi, a leader of Islamic Jihad, said.
Two Israeli tanks and several armored bulldozers moved early on Wednesday out of the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, a frequent flashpoint, witnesses said.
Gun battles erupted with dozens of militants in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood. Troops shot dead four gunmen from Islamic Jihad including two field commanders and one fighter from Hamas before pulling back, the groups said.
Among the bystanders killed was a 17-year-old, medics said.
But the Israeli commander in charge of the operation told Army Radio: "I can say with certainty that everyone who was killed was a terrorist, armed with a weapon."
The bodies of five militants draped in Islamic Jihad black flags and one body draped in a green Hamas flag were buried as about 5,000 people marched in the cortege. Gunmen fired in the air and threatened revenge.
Yesterday's bomb went off just before 9am in the Rehavia district in downtown Jerusalem, just 15m from Sharon's official residence. Sharon was at his farm in southern Israel at the time, his aides said.
Bret Stephens, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, said he heard the boom and ran to the scene.
"There was glass everywhere, human remains everywhere, shoes, feet, pieces of guts. There were pieces of body everywhere," he said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS