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December 6, 2005
Suicide attack kills five outside mall; Islamic Jihad claims responsibility
MATTHEW GUTMAN
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside Netanya’s terrorism-battered Sharon Mall Monday, killing five and wounding at least 60.
The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, responsible for the last five suicide bombings, claimed the attack in a telephone call to the Hizbullah-run Lebanese TV station, al-Manar.
Israel’s security cabinet decided Monday night to launch "a major operation in Judea, Samaria and Gaza" against Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian Authority will also be punished by the cancellation of the VIP status granted leading politicians and security officials which enables them to travel on roads generally closed to Palestinians.
Israel also opted to delay the opening of the safe passage route that would have connected the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, according to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman, Asi Shariv.
Haim Amram, 26, from Netanya, a security guard at the mall; Alexandra Zarnitzki, 65, from Netanya; Daniel Golani, 45, from Nahariya; Eliyah Rozen, 38, from Bat Hefer; and Keinan Tsuami, 20, from Petah Tikva, died in the blast.
It was the third suicide bombing outside the mall in four years, and rattled a city that has become Islamic Jihad’s favorite target.
Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, condemned the attack and pushed for PA and regional action against the perpetrators.
"I urge the Palestinian Authority to arrest and judge those responsible for this attack,‘ he said in a statement. ’I also urge the countries in the region to use their influence to cease all support to armed Palestinian opposition groups."
The US, UN and UK, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, also issued sharp denunciations of the attack.
"The presidency utterly condemns this mindless act of terrorism in the strongest terms and offers our deep condolences to the families of the victims and sympathies to the injured," according to a statement issued by the UK’s Foreign Office.
The attack was "aimed at innocent civilians and at derailing the peace process,‘ according to the statement, which called on the PA ’to bring those responsible to justice, and to exert every effort to prevent such attacks in the future."
Earlier, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas condemned the terrorist attack and vowed a crackdown on Islamic Jihad in the West Bank.
Nevertheless, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz accused the PA of failing to rein in the group and said Israel would do everything in its power to eradicate the group, according to a statement from his office.
Besides the large-scale strikes on Islamic Jihad strongholds in the West Bank, Mofaz is also pushing to overturn the ban on demolishing the homes of suicide bombers as a deterrent.
"This is a necessary step, so that everyone who even considers committing suicide knows there is a price for that," Mofaz told Army Radio.
Had it not been the courage of two security guards and two police officers, it would have been "a much more deadly bombing," said Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi.
Some 40 ambulances ferried the wounded to Laniado Hospital in Netanya, Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera and Kfar Saba’s Meir Hospital. Most of the wounded received first aid within four minutes of the bombing, according to Magen David Adom spokesman Yeruham Mendola.
Shortly before noon, bystanders alerted guards outside the mall to a "suspicious" man trying to enter. Alert bystanders called attention to the bomber, later identified as Lotfi Abu Saada, 21, from the village of Illar, near Tulkarm.
Policewoman Shoshi Attiya began screaming, "He’s a terrorist, stop him!" Eyewitness testimony conflicts, and some bystanders said they saw a van drop the bomber off and speed away.
Two guards at the mall’s entrance, Haim Amram, 26, and Tanya Korliov, rushed to apprehend the man, who calmly walked away from them and the entrance. Another policeman rushed to the scene, but when Amram moved to inspect the Abu Saada’s shoulder bag, he detonated it.
The force of the blast punched holes in the granite facade of the mall. Eyewitnesses saw Abu Saada’s body fly into the air. The blast blew plate glass from the mall’s upper stories 30 meters across Rehov Herzl and onto the Netanya Magistrate’s Court plaza across the street. Blood ended up on the mall’s upper stories as far as 30 meters away.
The bombing left a jumble of shredded clothes, torn plastic bags and flesh on the sidewalk. It also left Netanya residents with racked nerves.
Moshe Attiya, no relation to the policewoman, stood across the street from the mall, when a "strange-looking man caught my eye.‘ He quickly dialed the police, but ’I got cut off.‘ In paralyzed horror he watched the bombing unfold. He saw the mall’s security guards steer the bomber away from the building’s entrance ’and then the explosion hit me,‘ said Attiya, knocked backward by the blast. ’It was blinding. Even if I had wanted to see the sight I couldn’t."
"I hope we have bombings everyday,‘ said Yigal, 24, who runs a kiosk down the street from the mall’s entrance. ’That way someone might finally put a stop to this madness."
Police raised the level of alert nationwide following the attack and cast a wide net of checkpoints in the hopes of apprehending the bomber’s driver or other terrorists involved.
They also beefed up security at entertainment spots and malls across the country, and police and the IDF increased their patrols of the seam line with the West Bank.
The bombing cast doubt on Israel’s much-touted security barrier. Security officials have maintained the section of the fence completed in the northern part of the West Bank is essential to securing Israeli towns.
Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra defended the barrier, saying that to date no terrorist has penetrated it. However Israeli and Palestinian accomplices have smuggled bombers into Israel through crossing terminals meant for Israeli motorists.
Tawfiq Abu Husa, spokesman for the PA’s Interior Ministry, said Abbas’s promised crackdown on Islamic Jihad terrorists would begin "as soon as an investigation is concluded." He said he did not know when the investigation would be complete.
The Defense Ministry slammed the PA’s efforts at curbing any of the terrorist groups in its territory.
British Ambassador Simon McDonald, Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, head of the delegation of the European Commission, and Austrian Chargé d’Affairs Norbert Hack will lay a wreath at the scene of the bombing on behalf of the European Union tomorrow morning.
Yaakov Katz, Arieh O’Sullivan, Judy Siegel and Hilary Leila Krieger contributed to this report.
Guard dies preventing greater carnage
DANIEL BEN-TAL
Haim Amram, 26, a security guard at the Sharon Mall for several years, stopped the suicide bomber from killing many more innocent bystanders by blocking him with his body and pulling him in the direction of a wall to distance him from his target.
The other victims were identified on Monday evening as Alexandra Zarnitzki, 65, from Netanya; Eliyah Rosen, 38, from Bat Hefer; Daniel Golani, 45, from Nahariya; and Keinan Tsuami, 20, from Petah Tikva. The name of the fifth victim was released late Monday night.
Amram, who was responsible for security patrols around the mall, was also working the previous time the mall was attacked, but was not hurt.
Hundreds of well-wishers turned up at the Amram family house in Netanya yesterday afternoon, as news of the tragedy filtered through the city.
A graduate of the Sinai high school, Amram later studied at a yeshiva. The guard, who regularly worked out at the Wingate Institute, was described by friends as quiet and modest. Having completed his matriculation examinations last year, Amram intended to study psychology. In the past year, he reportedly moved in with his girlfriend, whom he intended to marry next summer.
Nahariya policemen had the unpleasant job of informing Golani’s wife Ronit that he had been killed. Two policemen escorted her, together with Golani’s business partner and neighbor David Bezeq, to the L. Greenberg Institute of Forensic Pathology in Abu Kabir to identify the body.
Golani owned three clothing stores, called Hasdera, in Nahariya, Acre and Kiryat Bialik. His sisters and parents live in Netanya, and he planned to expand his business by opening a new outlet in the mall where he tragically met his death.
Nahariya is in the grips of a tense local election campaign and is due to elect a new mayor today, but the town was subdued last night following the news that the popular shopkeeper had been killed. Golani was a leading activist in the campaign to reelect ousted mayor Ron Frumer.
"This is a great loss for the town, his family and friends," said a tearful Frumer, who last met with Golani on Monday evening to discuss their election day activities.
City councilman David Rosen related that Golani was well known in the town for his benevolence to those in need and his trustworthiness.
"The whole town is in mourning," added Deputy Mayor Zion Lankri, who knew Golani well.
Golani, described as a reliable family man, is survived by his wife and three daughters.
Rosen, an educational psychologist and mother of three children aged 12, nine and five, was due to start a new job as a project manager next week. She was at the mall to buy clothes for her new job.
She grew up in Ramat Aviv, graduated from the Alliance high school and studied psychology at Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is survived by her husband Gadi and three children.
Just hours after the bombing, Orit Katner recounted from her hospital bed how a shopping spree turned from a girls’ day out to tragedy.
Katner and her friend shopped in the mall — despite ruling it out originally — and emerged not knowing the bomber was trying to get in.
"She said, ’Let’s get out of here quickly,’ and I laughed and said, ’What? Do you smell the next bombing,’‘ Katner said in a TV interview, not giving the name of the friend. ’And she said, ’Yes.’‘ Seconds later they heard a policewoman yell ’terrorist," and Katner froze. The extra step that her friend took sealed her fate. She was killed.
"There was a tremendous boom,‘ Katner said, sobbing as she ran her hand through her hair. ’And she’s not alive." But Katner, who was lightly wounded, couldn’t believe that her friend was gone.
"I just saw her lying there and I tried to pick her up and I asked her to get up so we could go,"Katner said."I ask myself how we were standing right next to each other, and I was the way I was and she was the way she was.
"I said to myself that I was willing to be more seriously injured so that I could take half the injuries and she could take half so that both of us would recover. Right away [the paramedics] saw that she was dead and they didn’t want to treat her at all. I didn’t agree to leave her. They took me away by force."
AP contributed to this report.
In Memoriam
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