A Palestinian suicide bomber disguised as a religious Jew boarded a No. 6 Egged bus at Jerusalem's French Hill intersection early Sunday morning and blew himself up, killing seven passengers and wounding 20 others, four seriously.
The dead were: Shimon Ostinsky, 68; Nellie Perov, 55; Olga Brenner, 52; Marina Tzachivirshvili, 44; Yitzhak Moyal, 64; Roni Yisraeli, 35, all from the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood; and Tawil Ralab, 42, from Shuafat.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the bomber was identified by relatives as Bassem Jamil Tarkrouri, 19, a Hamas activist from Hebron.
Tarkrouri, wearing a belt of explosives, struck minutes before 6 a.m. The double-length bus had just past the intersection after picking up four passengers, including the bomber, eyewitnesses and police said.
He boarded the bus wearing a kippa and tallit in what police said was an apparently successful effort to give the impression that he had just returned from synagogue.
The explosion of his 10-kilo bomb ripped out the windows of the bus and sent glass fragments and personal belongings flying. The driver, who was wounded in the legs, lost control of the bus and it began rolling in reverse, smashing into a just arrived ambulance before coming to a stop ahead of the bus stop it had just passed.
"People were shouting 'Get out, get out,'" recalled passenger Yonatan Raphael, 19, a soldier, who was shoved to the floor of the back of the bus by the force of the blast, and managed to escape with only light wounds.
For an hour after the blast, the bus was an eerie sight, as the lifeless bodies of some of those killed remained upright in their seats near the front, where the bomber had evidently set off his explosives and the damage was clearly the most severe.
Rescue workers covered the seated bodies with white plastic sheeting.
"Most of the dead were in the front of the bus, sitting in their seats, their bodies intact with their heads just slightly reclining," said Ze'ev Kashash, 30, the first paramedic to arrive on the scene. "The screams came from the people in the back of the bus who made it out alive."
Another lucky passenger was Maj. Ya'acov Engelberg, who had just bent down in his seat to take a book from his bag when the explosion went off, sending ball bearings packed into the bomb for deadlier effect whizzing over his head. "I leaned down into my bag to take out my Mishna I think that's what saved my life and then the blast occurred, sending my glasses flying across the bus," Engelberg said from his bed in Shaare Zedek Hospital, where he was being treated for light wounds.
About 20 minutes after the blast, as rescue officials were just completing the evacuation of the wounded to four city hospitals and most Jerusalem residents were waking up to news reports, another explosion went off to the north. A second Palestinian suicide bomber had set off another explosion at a checkpoint near the city's northern border after being cornered there by security officials. He failed to kill anyone except himself.
Jerusalem police chief Cmdr. Mickey Levy said the second bomber blew himself up after being ordered to stop near the village of Dihyat el-Barid, which abuts the Neveh Ya'acov neighborhood.
Police suspect he was on his way to carry out a second attack when he was intercepted, and both he and Tarkrouri were part of the same Hamas cell. While the bombing shattered a six-month lull in suicide attacks in the capital, police were quick to point out that an unspecified number of intended bombings in the city had been thwarted by security officials, including one in the last week.
For weeks, police have stressed that there were ongoing general intelligence alerts over impending attacks, warnings which increased in intensity around national holidays and as political negotiations with the Palestinians were resuming. Police Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky told reporters that the use of religious garb as a disguise, used twice in as many days, was "nothing new."
In the past, Palestinian suicide bombers have also died their hair blonde or used gel to blend in with the secular Israeli teen crowd. "There is no doubt that we are under a large wave of global terror that doesn't have borders," Aharonishky said, referring to the international wave of bombings that have struck Western and Jewish targets over the last week. He reiterated that despite many successes, it is impossible to hermetically seal the country off from attackers.
Mayor Uri Lupolianski reflected on the first act of terror to strike the city since he took office in February.
"Every day before I was mayor, I prayed for myself and for my family, but since I became mayor, I pray for all the citizens of Jerusalem," he said. As he spoke, surgeons at Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem, were operating on four of the most serious wounded, including the bus driver, and Svetlana Brenner, 27, who lost her mother, Olga, in the bombing. The bus bombing was the 93rd suicide bombing since the outbreak of Palestinian violence in September 2000.
The French Hill intersection has been a repeated target for Palestinians attackers. Three other suicide bombers have killed seven bystanders there. In November 2001, a Palestinian terrorist sprayed bullets into a bus at the intersection, killing two high school students. Several car bombs have also rocked the neighborhood without causing injuries.
The seven victims
Six of the seven people killed in the attack were from Pisgat Ze'ev: Shimon Ostinsky, 68; Nellie Perov, 55; Olga Brenner, 52; Marina Tzachivirshvili, 44; Yitzhak Moyal, 64; and Roni Yisraeli, 35. The other, Tawil Ralab, 42, was from the Shuafat refugee camp.
Moyal was employed for 31 years at the post office.
Yisraeli was the deputy manager of the Supersol in Har Nof. Last year, he was saved from the bombing at the SuperSol in Kiryat Hayovel.
Ostinsky immigrated from Ukraine in 1991. Although he had a degree in economics, he worked in a parking lot in the Old City.
Perov immigrated from Khazakstan three years ago, and was on her way to work when killed.
Brenner immigrated from Moldova and worked as a cleaning lady at Israel Radio.
Her daughter, Svetlana, 27, who was also on the bus, was seriously wounded and is in the intensive care unit at Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem.
Tzachivirshvili worked as a nurse at Shaare Zedek Hospital.
