Suicide Bomber at Dimonah, Israel, the Nuclear Ammunition Dump
Suicide Bomber at Dimonah, Israel, the Nuclear Ammunition Dump
At least 3 dead in suicide attack in Israel
From the Associated Press
11:16 AM PST, February 4, 2008
DIMONA, Israel -- A suicide bomber blew himself up today at a shopping center in the southern town that houses Israel's secretive nuclear reactor complex, killing an Israeli woman and wounding nine. Police said they killed a second attacker before he could detonate his explosives belt.
It was the first suicide attack in Israel in a year, and officials were investigating whether the attackers came in through Egypt after Palestinian militants breached the Gaza-Egypt border last month.
An offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack, complicating recently revived peace talks. Militants said other attackers were already inside Israel, poised to carry out further assaults.
Abbas, whose government is based in the West Bank, condemned the attack on Dimona. But in the Gaza Strip, gunmen fired in the air and mourners passed out sweets to celebrate the bombing.
Hours after the bombing, Israeli aircraft struck a car in northern Gaza, killing a top wanted militant.
Israeli government officials dismissed the notion that the heavily guarded Dimona nuclear reactor was the suicide attackers' target. The explosion took place in a shopping area about six miles from the reactor site.
Dimona is home to Israel's nuclear research center, and it is widely believed atomic weapons were developed at the plant. Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear arms.
Ambulances and a large contingent of soldiers, rescue workers and police rushed to the scene of the bombing, the first in the working class town of 37,000.
One attacker managed to detonate his explosives belt, but the second was injured by the blast before he could set off his bomb. TV footage showed officers shooting the second attacker dead as he lay on the pavement. The severed head of the successful bomber lay in a pool of blood next to his shot comrade.
Dr. Michael Sherf, director of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where the wounded were treated, said the bomb was packed with ball bearings, making the impact more potent.
David Dahan, a 58-year-old man disabled by a hip injury, had just finished his morning cup of coffee at a cafe when the blast went off about six feet away.
"There was a great explosion and a great ball of fire came toward me," said Dahan, who uses a walker. "I saw him (the bomber) fall. I was hit, but I held on to my walker. ... My clothes were covered with his flesh."
Dahan's eye was covered with bloody bandages, and ball bearings were lodged inside his chest and the swollen left side of his face. He also had wounds in a leg and arm.
Dr. Baruch Mandelzweig said he was at his nearby clinic when he heard the blast. He and his nurses rushed out and saw body parts "strewn around everywhere."
They spotted a critically wounded man and began to treat him before realizing he was the second attacker. "We saw an explosive belt," Mandelzweig said. "We ran away."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the attack "presents an additional painful reminder that we have to stay alert at all times and on all fronts."
"There is a war between us and the terror groups that continues uninterrupted, an ongoing, relentless war. We shall hit all those involved in terrorism and anyone who tries to harm Israeli citizens," Olmert told a meeting of his Kadima Party.
Shortly after the bombing, Israeli aircraft killed a senior commander in the Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip, the militant group said. The military confirmed an attack on a PRC activist in Beit Lahiya, a town used by Palestinian extremists to fire rockets into southern Israel.
Southern Israel has been on alert against militant attacks since the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas rulers breached the territory's walled-off border with Egypt on Jan. 23, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to cross into Egypt unchecked over 12 days.
Egypt managed to reseal the border only on Sunday. Egyptian officials had no immediate comment on the Dimona bombing.
http://tinyurl.com/2e2qjc
Israel bombs tunnel after Palestinian suicide attack kills 3
Updated 1/29/2007 10:49 PM ET
EILAT, Israel (AP) — A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israelis at a bakery Monday in the first such attack inside the country in nine months, and the two radical groups that claimed to have sent him said they were trying to end weeks of Palestinian infighting by taking aim at Israel instead.
Israel's first response came early Tuesday. The army said its aircraft bombed a tunnel dug by Palestinians near the Gaza-Israel border that it said was intended for use by militants for an attack against Israel. No casualties were reported.
Israel has observed a truce with the Palestinians in Gaza since late November. But the airstrike signaled that the Eilat bombing put that cease-fire in danger.
The bombing was praised by the Palestinians' governing Hamas movement as legitimate resistance — a position that was sure to hurt efforts to end a crippling economic boycott imposed by the international community.
It was the first suicide bombing in this Red Sea resort of 50,000 at Israel's southern tip near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. The town is a popular getaway for Israelis because it has been insulated from Israeli-Palestinian violence by its distance from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Shattered glass, body parts and blood-splattered pastries were strewn on the sidewalk outside the bakery. Two of the victims were the owners of the bakery.
VIDEO: Grim scene at bakery
A relative identified the third victim as Yisrael Zalmalloa, who emigrated to Israel from Peru. The relative, who would give only her first name, Norma, said his parents live in Miami but had no other details. U.S. Embassy officials in Tel Aviv had no information.
"It was awful — there was smoke, pieces of flesh all over the place," said Benny Mazgini, a 45-year-old witness.
Eilat resident Yossi Voltinski said he picked up the attacker, who was hitchhiking on the edge of town, shortly before the attack. But he quickly grew suspicious because the man was dressed in heavy clothing on a warm day.
"He was wearing a coat closed tightly and was wearing a hat. He didn't speak Hebrew. He was very irritable," Voltinski said. "I then understood that without a doubt this was a hostile person."
He said he dropped the man off on a side road with few people and quickly alerted authorities. "From when I called the police until the explosion, no more than a few minutes elapsed," he told Channel 10 TV.
Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed joint responsibility. Both militant groups said they hoped to encourage warring Palestinian factions to end weeks of clashes.
"The operation has a clear message to the Palestinian rivals. It is necessary to end the infighting and point the guns toward the occupation that has hurt the Palestinian people," a posting on the Islamic Jihad website said.
Early Tuesday, officials from the rival Fatah and Hamas movements announced a new cease-fire. Negotiated by the two sides with Egyptian mediators at a midnight meeting, the agreement was supposed to end bloodshed that has left over 60 Palestinians dead since early December.
But fighting continued in downtown Gaza after the truce was supposed to have taken effect. Several earlier truce agreements have broken down.
Arriving in Cairo, Abbas denounced the Eilat bombing, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.
Islamic Jihad identified the bomber as Mohammed Siksik, 20, from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. Relatives said Siksik was unemployed and despondent over the death of a newborn daughter from disease, and was driven to avenge his best friend's killing in fighting with Israel.
Dozens of neighbors celebrated the bombing at the family's home. Children held up pictures of Siksik brandishing an assault rifle, and a crowd chanted slogans praising him as a martyr.
Siksik's mother, Rowayda, said he left home three days ago and proudly told reporters that she knew of the attack in advance.
"He told me: Meeting God is better for me than this whole world," she said.
Underscoring the divisions in Palestinian society, gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Islamic Jihad got into a loud argument, each side claiming Siksik as their own.
The attack was the second suicide bombing in Israel since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections a year ago. Labeled a terrorist group in the West for its anti-Israel ideology, it came under heavy criticism for making statements in support of a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv restaurant shortly after it took power.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, called Monday's attack a "natural response" to Israeli military policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.
He also said attacks on Israel were preferable to the recent Palestinian infighting.
"The right thing is for Fatah weapons to be directed toward the occupation not toward Hamas," Barhoum said.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema called the bombing "barbaric," and the White House said it held the Hamas-led government accountable.
"Failure to act against terror will inevitably affect relations between that government and the international community and undermine the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own," the White House said.
The U.S. and European Union have been enforcing a boycott on financial aid to the Palestinian government since Hamas took office. They have demanded the group renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist — conditions Hamas rejects.
Israel has been trying to bolster Abbas in his standoff with Hamas. But a renewal of suicide bombings — which are sharply down from their height four years ago — could derail efforts to revive peace talks.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is linked to Fatah. However, Fatah spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rahman condemned the violence.
"We are against any operation that targets civilians, Israelis or Palestinians," he said.
There was some disagreement over the route used by the bomber.
Islamic Jihad said he entered Eilat from Jordan. But Jordan, which has good relations with Israel, said the man had never been in the kingdom.
Israeli officials said the bomber traveled from Gaza into Egypt, and then crossed through the long, largely unguarded desert border into Israel on a route frequently used by smugglers. Israel TV reported he used one of the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border used for smuggling weapons into Gaza.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://tinyurl.com/yoafeb
At least 3 dead in suicide attack in Israel
From the Associated Press
11:16 AM PST, February 4, 2008
DIMONA, Israel -- A suicide bomber blew himself up today at a shopping center in the southern town that houses Israel's secretive nuclear reactor complex, killing an Israeli woman and wounding nine. Police said they killed a second attacker before he could detonate his explosives belt.
It was the first suicide attack in Israel in a year, and officials were investigating whether the attackers came in through Egypt after Palestinian militants breached the Gaza-Egypt border last month.
An offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack, complicating recently revived peace talks. Militants said other attackers were already inside Israel, poised to carry out further assaults.
Abbas, whose government is based in the West Bank, condemned the attack on Dimona. But in the Gaza Strip, gunmen fired in the air and mourners passed out sweets to celebrate the bombing.
Hours after the bombing, Israeli aircraft struck a car in northern Gaza, killing a top wanted militant.
Israeli government officials dismissed the notion that the heavily guarded Dimona nuclear reactor was the suicide attackers' target. The explosion took place in a shopping area about six miles from the reactor site.
Dimona is home to Israel's nuclear research center, and it is widely believed atomic weapons were developed at the plant. Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear arms.
Ambulances and a large contingent of soldiers, rescue workers and police rushed to the scene of the bombing, the first in the working class town of 37,000.
One attacker managed to detonate his explosives belt, but the second was injured by the blast before he could set off his bomb. TV footage showed officers shooting the second attacker dead as he lay on the pavement. The severed head of the successful bomber lay in a pool of blood next to his shot comrade.
Dr. Michael Sherf, director of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where the wounded were treated, said the bomb was packed with ball bearings, making the impact more potent.
David Dahan, a 58-year-old man disabled by a hip injury, had just finished his morning cup of coffee at a cafe when the blast went off about six feet away.
"There was a great explosion and a great ball of fire came toward me," said Dahan, who uses a walker. "I saw him (the bomber) fall. I was hit, but I held on to my walker. ... My clothes were covered with his flesh."
Dahan's eye was covered with bloody bandages, and ball bearings were lodged inside his chest and the swollen left side of his face. He also had wounds in a leg and arm.
Dr. Baruch Mandelzweig said he was at his nearby clinic when he heard the blast. He and his nurses rushed out and saw body parts "strewn around everywhere."
They spotted a critically wounded man and began to treat him before realizing he was the second attacker. "We saw an explosive belt," Mandelzweig said. "We ran away."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the attack "presents an additional painful reminder that we have to stay alert at all times and on all fronts."
"There is a war between us and the terror groups that continues uninterrupted, an ongoing, relentless war. We shall hit all those involved in terrorism and anyone who tries to harm Israeli citizens," Olmert told a meeting of his Kadima Party.
Shortly after the bombing, Israeli aircraft killed a senior commander in the Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip, the militant group said. The military confirmed an attack on a PRC activist in Beit Lahiya, a town used by Palestinian extremists to fire rockets into southern Israel.
Southern Israel has been on alert against militant attacks since the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas rulers breached the territory's walled-off border with Egypt on Jan. 23, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to cross into Egypt unchecked over 12 days.
Egypt managed to reseal the border only on Sunday. Egyptian officials had no immediate comment on the Dimona bombing.
http://tinyurl.com/2e2qjc
Israel bombs tunnel after Palestinian suicide attack kills 3
Updated 1/29/2007 10:49 PM ET
EILAT, Israel (AP) — A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israelis at a bakery Monday in the first such attack inside the country in nine months, and the two radical groups that claimed to have sent him said they were trying to end weeks of Palestinian infighting by taking aim at Israel instead.
Israel's first response came early Tuesday. The army said its aircraft bombed a tunnel dug by Palestinians near the Gaza-Israel border that it said was intended for use by militants for an attack against Israel. No casualties were reported.
Israel has observed a truce with the Palestinians in Gaza since late November. But the airstrike signaled that the Eilat bombing put that cease-fire in danger.
The bombing was praised by the Palestinians' governing Hamas movement as legitimate resistance — a position that was sure to hurt efforts to end a crippling economic boycott imposed by the international community.
It was the first suicide bombing in this Red Sea resort of 50,000 at Israel's southern tip near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. The town is a popular getaway for Israelis because it has been insulated from Israeli-Palestinian violence by its distance from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Shattered glass, body parts and blood-splattered pastries were strewn on the sidewalk outside the bakery. Two of the victims were the owners of the bakery.
VIDEO: Grim scene at bakery
A relative identified the third victim as Yisrael Zalmalloa, who emigrated to Israel from Peru. The relative, who would give only her first name, Norma, said his parents live in Miami but had no other details. U.S. Embassy officials in Tel Aviv had no information.
"It was awful — there was smoke, pieces of flesh all over the place," said Benny Mazgini, a 45-year-old witness.
Eilat resident Yossi Voltinski said he picked up the attacker, who was hitchhiking on the edge of town, shortly before the attack. But he quickly grew suspicious because the man was dressed in heavy clothing on a warm day.
"He was wearing a coat closed tightly and was wearing a hat. He didn't speak Hebrew. He was very irritable," Voltinski said. "I then understood that without a doubt this was a hostile person."
He said he dropped the man off on a side road with few people and quickly alerted authorities. "From when I called the police until the explosion, no more than a few minutes elapsed," he told Channel 10 TV.
Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed joint responsibility. Both militant groups said they hoped to encourage warring Palestinian factions to end weeks of clashes.
"The operation has a clear message to the Palestinian rivals. It is necessary to end the infighting and point the guns toward the occupation that has hurt the Palestinian people," a posting on the Islamic Jihad website said.
Early Tuesday, officials from the rival Fatah and Hamas movements announced a new cease-fire. Negotiated by the two sides with Egyptian mediators at a midnight meeting, the agreement was supposed to end bloodshed that has left over 60 Palestinians dead since early December.
But fighting continued in downtown Gaza after the truce was supposed to have taken effect. Several earlier truce agreements have broken down.
Arriving in Cairo, Abbas denounced the Eilat bombing, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.
Islamic Jihad identified the bomber as Mohammed Siksik, 20, from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. Relatives said Siksik was unemployed and despondent over the death of a newborn daughter from disease, and was driven to avenge his best friend's killing in fighting with Israel.
Dozens of neighbors celebrated the bombing at the family's home. Children held up pictures of Siksik brandishing an assault rifle, and a crowd chanted slogans praising him as a martyr.
Siksik's mother, Rowayda, said he left home three days ago and proudly told reporters that she knew of the attack in advance.
"He told me: Meeting God is better for me than this whole world," she said.
Underscoring the divisions in Palestinian society, gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Islamic Jihad got into a loud argument, each side claiming Siksik as their own.
The attack was the second suicide bombing in Israel since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections a year ago. Labeled a terrorist group in the West for its anti-Israel ideology, it came under heavy criticism for making statements in support of a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv restaurant shortly after it took power.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, called Monday's attack a "natural response" to Israeli military policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.
He also said attacks on Israel were preferable to the recent Palestinian infighting.
"The right thing is for Fatah weapons to be directed toward the occupation not toward Hamas," Barhoum said.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema called the bombing "barbaric," and the White House said it held the Hamas-led government accountable.
"Failure to act against terror will inevitably affect relations between that government and the international community and undermine the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own," the White House said.
The U.S. and European Union have been enforcing a boycott on financial aid to the Palestinian government since Hamas took office. They have demanded the group renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist — conditions Hamas rejects.
Israel has been trying to bolster Abbas in his standoff with Hamas. But a renewal of suicide bombings — which are sharply down from their height four years ago — could derail efforts to revive peace talks.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is linked to Fatah. However, Fatah spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rahman condemned the violence.
"We are against any operation that targets civilians, Israelis or Palestinians," he said.
There was some disagreement over the route used by the bomber.
Islamic Jihad said he entered Eilat from Jordan. But Jordan, which has good relations with Israel, said the man had never been in the kingdom.
Israeli officials said the bomber traveled from Gaza into Egypt, and then crossed through the long, largely unguarded desert border into Israel on a route frequently used by smugglers. Israel TV reported he used one of the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border used for smuggling weapons into Gaza.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://tinyurl.com/yoafeb
bin66 - 5. Feb, 00:41
