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Tuesday, July 17, 2001
Suicide bomber kills two soldiers in Binyamina attack
DAVID RUDGE
Two IDF soldiers, one of them a woman, were killed, another soldier was seriously wounded, and at least eight civilians were wounded - two of them seriously - when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance to the Binyamina railway station yesterday evening.
A car, apparently driven by a woman, that was seen dropping off the terrorist bomber, drove away from the scene and was being hunted by police with the aid of helicopters.
The extremist Shi'ite Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility for the attack via Hizbullah's Manar television station, saying it was in retaliation for recent Israeli eliminations of Palestinian terrorists, including those belonging to Islamic Jihad.
At around midnight the IDF was shelling Palestinian targets in Jenin and Tulkarm in response to the bombing, Channel 1's late-night news reported.
Earlier, Ben-Eliezer said Israel would hit back for all terror attacks.
'We don't intend not to retaliate on every incident. We plan to retaliate,' Ben-Eliezer told The Jerusalem Post before the bombing yesterday.
He also spoke of what appeared to be a failed attempt by Palestinian terrorists to stage an attack at the opening of the 16th Maccabiah Games in Jerusalem. 'A terrible tragedy was averted. Two terrorists got confused and set off a bomb. You know where they were heading,' he said.
In that incident, the bomb apparently exploded prematurely, killing the two terrorists before they were able to carry out their plans.
Last night, however, the suicide bomber succeeded in carrying out a deadly attack, despite reinforced security measures and the presence of police and security personnel at the entrance to the railway station.
Nevertheless, some security sources said the attack could have been even worse if the terrorist had not been deterred from entering the station because of the police presence.
Binyamina station is a major railway junction for passengers travelling from Nahariya, Haifa, and the bayside suburbs to Tel Aviv and the South. Passengers change trains there, and it has become a drop-off point for people living in the region, especially the expanded township of nearby Zichron Ya'acov.
The railway lines run alongside the main road in Binyamina, and the station is only a step away from homes in the normally quiet backwater township.
The attack occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m., when the bomber, with a large quantity of explosives strapped to his body, walked up to a group of soldiers and civilians at a hitchhiking point near the entrance to the railway station.
Meir Solomon, a veteran volunteer driver and paramedic for Magen David Adom, was the first to arrive at the scene.
'I had been driving past on the main road when I heard the explosion. I turned around and drove about 100 meters back to the scene,' he said. 'When I reached the scene I immediately started to give reports to MDA and the police about the situation. I saw that there was one person dead, two critical, one moderate-to-serious, and three or four suffering from light wounds and shock.'
The dead person at the scene was a woman soldier in uniform. Solomon said he saw no recognizable remains of the suicide bomber. He attended to a soldier in critical condition, suffering from multiple wounds, especially in the lower abdomen, and serious loss of blood.
'I have served in the IDF in Lebanon and in the territories and have been a volunteer in this region, and so I have dealt with the terrorist attacks in Hadera and other places,' said Solomon.
'I just did what I had to do to save lives without thinking about it, although the fact that this occurred close to my own home might have a delayed effected on me,' said Solomon, 35, who is married with two young children and whose wife is expecting their third child.
The wounded were taken in a fleet of MDA ambulances to Hadera's Hillel Yaffe Hospital.
Police and sappers sealed off the area and searched for any other explosive devices.
'We knew that there have been warnings for the past four days and we were in readiness,' said Binyamina local council head Arye Zituni.
In Memoriam
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