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May. 20, 2003
3 dead in shopping mall as Israel sustains wave of bombings
By David Rudge
A Palestinian woman detonated an explosives belt outside a shopping mall in northern Israel Monday, killing herself and three Israelis, and wounding 70 people.
It was the sixth suicide bombing to strike Israel in 48 hours, with a total of 12 people killed and scores wounded in the string of attacks.
Responsiblity for Monday's bombing at the Sha'ar Ha'amakim mall in the town of Afula, was jointly claimed by a wing of the ruling Palestinian Authority's Fatah movement and Islamic Jihad.
Palestinians identified the bomber as 19-year-old Palestinian woman, Hiba Daraghmeh, from the West Bank village of Tubas, to the south of Afula. She was a student in English literature and said to have been devoutly religious.
The Israelis killed in the attack included the two guards who tried to stop her at the back entrance to the mall, and a third man who died of his injuries in Afula's Haemek Hospital.
At least 10 of those wounded were listed in serious condition, three were taken to Rambam Hospital in Haifa for treatment in the intensive care unit of the neurosurgery department.
Both the Islamic Jihad and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. The two terrorist groups have carried out joint attacks in the past, with funding coming from Iran via Islamic Jihad.
The attack occurred at 5:14 p.m. The bomber detonated an belt strapped to her waist packed with five kilograms of explosive, as a guard at the back entrance of the mall was checking her with a metal-detector scanner, and the machine emitted a warning beep.
"There was a big explosion and my friend and I were blown over backwards," said Etti Pitilon, 19, a border policewoman. "I saw bodies, but I don't want to think about it," she told the Associated Press, crying.
Inbal Badani, 24, a shop assistant at a clothing store in the mall said she heard a deafening explosion.
"The entire mall filled up with smoke. It was pitch black all around as the light system went off. Lamps and light fixtures crashed onto people's heads and they started running in every direction. I hid inside the storeroom. The bodies were spread out at the entrance to the mall, it was shocking," she said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas condemned the attack, the fifth to occur since his groundbreaking meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday night in Jerusalem.
It was the sixth suicide bombing in Israel and the territories since the attack in Hebron on Saturday night in which Dina and Gadi Levy were killed, followed by the bus attack in Jerusalem on Sunday that left seven dead.
In yet another attack on Monday, a bomber on a bicycle blew himself up near an IDF jeep in Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip early Monday, lightly wounding three soldiers.
Four Kassam rockets and mortar attacks were also launched on Monday against civilian tartets in Gaza and the Negev town of Sderot.
In addition, IDF reservists on Sunday killed two terrorists from Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigade and thwarted their attempted infiltration into Sha'arei Tikva in western Samaria.
In light of the wave of terror attacks and ongoing warnings, national police chief Inspector-General Shlomo Aharonishky ordered the cancellation of all leave and of studies in order to boost the presence of police in cities and towns and try to plug gaps along the seam-line.
Aharonishky, who went to the scene of the Afula bombing shortly after the attack, said:
"There's no doubt that the latest attack, following those at the end of last week and the beginning of this week, have created the reality that we are in the midst of a big wave of terror."
Northern region police chief Commander Ya'acov Borovsky said police were working on the assumption that the Afula suicide bomber had an accomplice who conveyed him to the scene of the attack.
Wide searches were initiated with the aid of a police helicopter and roadblockss and checkpoints were set up in the area and along the seam-line, especially routes leading to and from Jenin, just a few kilometers away.
Afula has suffered from numerous terrorist attacks in the past, apart from the four incidents since the outbreak of the so-called Aksa intifada in September 2000, primarily because of its proximity to the border with the territories.
In Memoriam
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