Two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up almost simultaneously on separate buses yesterday in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva, killing 16 people and injuring almost 100.
The attacks, carried out by the radical Hamas group, shattered an almost six-month hiatus in suicide bombings inside Israel, and was seized on by political leaders as proof of the need for the separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.
The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, who was meeting security officials last night to discuss Israel's response, vowed the government would "continue fighting terror with all its might". He added, however, that the attack would not stop him from forging ahead with his "disengagement" plan, which entails the dismantling of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank. "This has no connection to disengagement," he said.
Police investigators suspect that the bombers, both from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, got on to the buses at the city's central bus station and blew themselves up several stops later. At the scene, rescue workers treated the injured and carried them away to ambulances. Body parts and glass shards were strewn along the road and blood was splattered on the inside of the buses, which were torn apart by the force of the blasts.
"I heard a blast and I started to run to the site. Within seconds there was another explosion," said Mr Gil Yehezekel, the owner of a business near the attack. "When I got there, there were people on the floor, wounded people, limbs torn off."
A passenger on one of the buses, Mr Nissim Vaknin, said he had been sitting next to the bomber and had been saved because he gave up his seat to an elderly woman just before the blast. The woman was killed. "It was a miracle," he said. "But it is also heartbreaking."
Hamas released a leaflet saying the attack was revenge for Israel's assassinations earlier this year of its leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor, Dr Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Israel targeted the two men after the last suicide attack inside Israel, in mid-March, when 11 people were killed at the southern port of Ashdod. "If you thought that the martyrdom of our leaders would weaken our missions and discourage us from Jihad, then you are dreaming," Hamas said.
In Gaza, residents took to the streets, distributing sweets, holding aloft pictures of Sheikh Yassin and Dr Rantisi, and waving Hamas flags. The two bombers were identified as Ahmed Qawasmeh (26) and Mohammed Ja'abari (22).
Palestinian Authority leaders condemned the attacks. "The Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not to give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people," Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat said in a statement.
Israel puts the absence of attacks in recent months down to its ongoing military crackdown in the occupied territories and to the separation barrier it is constructing in the West Bank, but which has yet to be built in the Hebron area. "Where a fence exists, there is no terror. Where there is no fence, there is terror," Public Security Minister Mr Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters.