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June 20, 2002
6 killed in north Jerusalem attack
ETGAR LEFKOVITS,
News agencies contributed to this report
A Palestinian suicide bomber dashed to a bus stop at northern Jerusalem's French Hill intersection last night and blew himself up, killing at least six people, including a five-year-old girl and an infant girl, and wounding 43 others, one critically. The five-year-old girl's mother was seriously wounded and her one-year-old brother was moderately wounded.
Hadassah Yungers, 20, from Migdal Ha'emek was identified as one of the victims.
It was the second suicide bombing in the capital - and the third in Israel - in as many days, and marked the 71st Palestinian suicide bombing since the outbreak of violence 21 months ago.
The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement sent to Hizbullah's Al Manar television station in Lebanon.
'Zionists, leave this land. We will not stop our operations as long as there remains an occupier on our land,' the statement said.
Shortly after 7 p.m. the terrorist sprang out of a car and sprinted across the intersection to the bus stop and hitchhiking post, crowded with more than four dozen people.
A border policeman stationed at the bus stop as part of around-the-clock security noticed the terrorist and tried to stop him, and was seriously wounded by the blast, Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy told reporters at the scene.
Levy said the two border policemen positioned at the bus stop did not have the 'time or place' to open fire at the bomber.
The police, citing eyewitnesses, said the car that dropped off the bomber immediately sped away from the scene in the direction of Ramallah. Security officials were searching for the vehicle.
'When I reached the intersection, there was a huge explosion, and then body parts began flying in the air,' said Ziv Hatib, 21, from Mitzpe Yeriho, who was driving towards Jerusalem.
'Then the whole station just gave in, and I felt like I was going to lose consciousness, so I pulled over to the side of the road,' he said.
Levy cautioned that even after last night's attack - following Tuesday morning's suicide bombing on an Egged bus opposite Jerusalem's Beit Safafa neighborhood, in which 19 people were killed and more than 70 wounded - there are more warnings of pending terrorist attacks in the city.
As rescue workers, their hands and boots covered in plastic, sifted through the rubble and carnage of yet another blast on a major city thoroughfare, the sight of an overturned baby carriage stood out.
The force of the blast blew out the back and the sides of the hitchhiking post, leaving just a concrete bench and the roof in place.
'We are in the midst of a war, which continued yesterday, continues today, and will most certainly continue tomorrow,' Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert said at the scene of the attack.
He called on the government to carry out an 'incessant military offensive' that should be charted with 'caution but determination, and with unprecedented severity.'
Police Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky said the war against terrorism would not end 'tomorrow or the day after,' and urged the public to gather its strength for a long struggle.
'Even if everyone stayed inside their homes, this would not prevent terrorist attacks,' Aharonishky said when asked what advice he had to people worried about leaving their homes.
Jerusalem will be beefed up with hundreds of police from other cities, police said last night.
The PA condemned 'in the strongest terms possible' the attacks last night and Tuesday, and called for international help to try to stem violence against civilians.
'Yesterday and today there were two grave attacks against Israeli civilians. These attacks are condemned in the strongest terms possible,' a PA statement sent to Reuters said.
'The Palestinian leadership condemns the Jerusalem attack and urges the dispatch of international monitors to strengthen the cease-fire and stop bloodshed of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,' the statement said.
Two of the funerals of victims of the first suicide bombing were under way while the second attack was taking place.
In Memoriam
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