ET 'Human limpet mine' kills doctor as bus is targeted in Israel
By Alan Philps in Israel

A PALESTINIAN suicide bomber pressed himself to the side of an Israeli bus like a limpet mine yesterday, killing a 52-year-old doctor and injuring 30 other people in the first such attack for almost a month.

The bus bombing was the first major challenge to the resumption of contacts between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs aimed at reducing the level of violence of the past seven months. But officials said a second security meeting was likely to go ahead, probably today, despite the bloodshed. "There is still a good possibility of continuing the talks," said a security source.

Witnesses said the bomber struck at 9.10am at the height of the rush hour, Sunday being a normal working day in Israel. A young Palestinian man stood at a bus stop in the town of Kfar Sava, a suburb of Tel Aviv, waited for the door to open and detonated a bomb strapped to his waist which was packed with four-inch nails. A police spokesman said: "When the bus got to the stop, a suicide attacker stood next to it and activated a device."

Muriel Armond, a passenger in the bus, said: "I was sitting by the window and suddenly there was fire and an indescribable boom. People were in shock. They did not know where to get off the bus, in the front or at the back. The first thing I saw when I got off was a 14-year-old boy, wearing his backpack, lying on the ground with a pool of blood trickling from his head. I shouted, 'The boy, the boy'."

The dead man was named as Mario Goldin, a doctor, who was on his way to visit his wife at the Kfar Sava hospital. It is the fourth bombing in or near the town, which lies close to Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank. Two teenagers were killed in a similar bus stop suicide attack near there last month.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, blamed Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, for the bombing and demanded action, not words. Following a serious escalation when Israeli troops moved in to occupy a pocket of Palestinian-controlled land in Gaza on Monday, the two sides have resumed high-level meetings.

After a meeting on Saturday night, Israel said there was agreement to "apply measures aimed at putting an end to violence and terrorism", as well as for Israel to ease crippling restrictions on the movements of Palestinians. The Palestinians said the responses were "insufficient".

The two extremist organisations which usually carry out suicide attacks, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, both supported the operation, without formally claiming responsibility. The Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said: "It is not one of our aims to injure civilians. But the Israeli enemy pushes our young people to commit acts of revenge like the massacres committed against our people."

It is the first suicide bombing since March 28. Since then the focus of Hamas activity has been launching mortar bombs from inside the Gaza Strip - a form of artillery which has had a massive psychological impact on Israel, even though it has caused only two injuries. A small bomb exploded in the port city of Haifa yesterday, slightly injuring a policeman.

Field Marshal Habees al- Majali, considered to be Jordan's greatest military commander and said to have captured Mr Sharon in 1948, died yesterday in Amman, aged 91.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001