- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian
militant killed 11 people and wounded 49 when he blew himself up on a crowded
bus in Jerusalem on Thursday in the first suicide bombing in Israel since
the start of a general election campaign.
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- The bombing provided further evidence that militants
were determined to make their presence felt in the run-up to Israel's January
28 ballot, and raised the spectre of harsh military retaliation.
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- The explosion ripped through a bus packed with commuters
and school children during morning rush hour. Witnesses said they heard
children who had been on their way to school screaming "Mamma, Mamma"
from the wreckage. Four children were killed.
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- "There was a huge explosion...I fell to the floor,"
said Yitzhak Cohen, a middle-aged passenger. "Around me there were
bodies everywhere, some of them lying one on top of the other."
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- The bombing was the first in Israel since Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon called a snap election after his broad coalition government
collapsed earlier this month, setting the stage for voters to make a clear
choice between hawks and doves.
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- Militants have struck during previous election campaigns
and have made clear they will do so again despite the view such assaults
bolster support for Sharon and hurt his dovish Labour rival, Amram Mitzna,
who has vowed to reopen peace talks.
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- Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both dedicated to Israel's destruction,
say they see no difference between Israel's parties and will not let up
on their bombing campaigns until Israel ends its occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
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- A man driving past when the bus exploded told Israel
radio: "I saw people draped out of windows. Two or three children
were screaming inside the bus and then they climbed out."
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- Passers-by raced to help the victims, many of them burned,
bloodied and sobbing. Residents of the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood where
the bombing occurred rushed from their houses desperate to learn the fate
of their children.
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- In the evening, young Israelis protested at the site,
burning trash cans, setting off firecrackers and cursing Arabs.
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- It was the first bombing in Jerusalem since June.
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- CONDEMNATION
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- Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing and vowed
more attacks. It said it was avenging Israel's "assassination"
of its military leader in an air strike in Gaza in July that also killed
one of his aides and 14 civilians.
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- Meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in the Czech
Republic, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned
the bombing.
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- "It is clear that those who want to use terror to
stop any process for peace are still active. In order to achieve peace
all countries in the region must take responsibility, do their best to
fight off terror," Bush told reporters.
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- Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Prague, demanded
Palestinians "eradicate the infrastructure of terrorism."
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- In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned
the bombing "as utterly reprehensible" but said such acts should
not blind all sides to the need for peace talks.
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- The latest violence, including Israeli military raids,
threatened to undermine U.S. efforts to achieve calm in the region while
it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.
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- Hamas said the 23-year-old bomber was from the Bethlehem
area. The man's father told reporters he was proud of his son.
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- Palestinian witnesses said the army put a curfew on villages
in the area, some of which are under Israeli security control.
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- The bomber killed himself and 11 others. Four of the
10 Israeli victims were aged eight to 16. One Romanian died. Hospital officials
said half the 49 wounded were under 18.
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- NEW PARTY LEADER PLEDGES PEACE TALKS
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- New Labour Party leader Mitzna told the party committee
on Thursday he would fight Palestinian militants and relaunch peace talks
at the same time if he is voted in as premier.
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- The Israeli public has turned to the right amid a surge
of bombings during a two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence.
Opinion polls show Sharon's Likud party widely favored to defeat the center-left
Labour Party.
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- In deciding a response, Sharon faces the complication
of a Likud vote next Thursday to decide whether he or his more hawkish
challenger, former Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, will lead the party in the
election. Polls have tipped Sharon as the almost certain winner.
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- Sharon met with his security officials after the blast
but not foreign minister Netanyahu, who visited hospitals.
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- Israeli security sources said an August understanding
in which Israel ended army activity in Bethlehem in return for Palestinian
security deployment was now canceled. They said Israel would retaliate.
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- Sharon responded to bombings in Jerusalem last summer
by sending troops to reoccupy much of the West Bank.
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- Israel blamed the latest attack on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian
Authority for failing to rein in militants.
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- The Palestinian Authority condemned the bombing as "terrorism"
and said such attacks had nothing to do with "resistance to occupation,"
but that Israel was responsible for continued violence with its army crackdown
on Palestinian areas.
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- At least 1,674 Palestinians and 650 Israelis have been
killed since the uprising erupted in September 2000.
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