Israel was rocked by two Palestinian suicide bombings within six hours yesterday - at a bus-stop outside an army base near Tel Aviv in the afternoon, and at a café in Jerusalem late last night, writes David Horovitz, in Jerusalem
Six Israelis were killed in the first blast, and initial reports were that at least four people had been killed in the second, but some of the dozens of those wounded were still being evacuated to hospital and the death toll was likely to rise.
The late-night blast was at Café Hillel in the German Colony neighbourhood. Jerusalem's police chief Mr Mickey Levy said that a guard at the café spotted and attempted to stop the bomber as he reached the entrance. The café, new and popular, was ripped apart by the explosive device.
In the afternoon blast, the bomber detonated explosives amid a crowd of soldiers at a bus-stop outside the Tsrifin army base. "It's just not fair to see the people you serve with lying there," a tearful soldier named Nurit, who escaped injury, told Israel television. "They were killed for nothing, not killed in a war. They were on the way home."
The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the two bombings in a statement to the Al Jazeera broadcasting service.
Israeli officials vowed to continue their effort to wipe out all members of the Hamas "hard core". They also charged that the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, bore indirect responsibility since they said he had frustrated efforts by the recently resigned prime minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, to put an end to the armed intifada.
The Israeli Internal Security Minister, Mr Tsahi Hanegbi, dismissed Mr Abbas's designated successor, Mr Ahmed Korei (Abu Ala), as an Arafat-appointed "marionette who won't fight terror".