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Saturday night of terror: 13 dead in attacks in Jerusalem and Netanya By Debbie Berman March 10, 2002 |
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A suicide bomber blew himself up Saturday night in Jerusalem's Moment café, located 30 meters (33 yards) away from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's official residence. Eleven Israelis were killed and 72 others were injured, five of them seriously. Two hours earlier, two Palestinian terrorists opened fire and threw grenades in the lobby of a Netanya hotel. Two Israelis were killed, including an infant, and 55 were wounded. Just after 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, a Palestinian suicide bomber succeeded in bypassing security guards and entered the crowded Moment café, located on the corner of Azza and Ben-Maimon Streets in Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood. The festive atmosphere of the popular café was interrupted by a deafening blast when the terrorist detonated a large explosive device, which caused extensive damage to the café's interior. The names of the victims of the Jerusalem attack
were released Sunday morning:
"There was an explosion of atomic proportions; the whole cafe filled with smoke," recalled eyewitness Eran Schechter. Another unnamed witness told Channel 1 television news, "A man walked in and blew himself up. There are pieces of him all over. The police are removing people from the scene. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen." Police sealed off the area and sappers searched for additional explosive devices, but none were found. Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy said that while there were warnings of a possible attack in Jerusalem for last night, none targeted the residential Rehavia neighborhood specifically. "We can't be in every place at all times," he added. Police sources said the cafe's close proximity to the Prime Minister's house was coincidental. Media reports suggested a parallel between the attack near Sharon's official residence with Israel's overnight air strikes on Arafat's Gaza headquarters. Sharon was at his Negev ranch home at the time of the bombing. "This is a difficult night for Jerusalem," declared Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert last night. Olmert recalled frequenting a coffee house situated in the Moment café building over thirty years before, when he was a university student. "I've never tried to paint a rosy picture. It's not ending, and I'm not sure there won't be more incidents like this in the future," he said. Hours before the attack, over 300 people participated in a demonstration of the Peace Coalition in Kikar Tzarfat, up the street from the cafe. Demonstrators called for an IDF withdrawal from the territories. Shooting attack near Netanya hotel The victims of the Netanya shooting attack were identified as Mir Yeshiva student Yisrael Yechya, 27, and 9-month-old Aviha Malka. The infant was visiting from South Africa to see her grandparents who live in Israel. Her father was seriously wounded, one of over 50 people injured in the attack. The terrorists fled the scene, but were hunted down and killed by border police. Police initially assumed that an additional terrorist was involved in the attack and had managed to escape. Police conducted a room-to-room search in the adjacent hotels, while helicopters searched rooftops for additional terrorists. Border police office Jeremy Mekonen later told reporters how he helped kill the terrorists. "We were informed about the shooting in the city and we went toward the sound of the shooting. We made contact and I got them in my sights and started to open fire and that was the end of the incident We boxed them in so that they could not escape and we fired at them and killed them." According to media reports, Yechya may have been killed by accidental police gunfire, as he was apparently near the terrorists during the incident and considered to be one of the assailants. The Izzadin al-Qassam military wing of the Hamas claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem bombing and the Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade took responsibility for the Netanya attack.
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