ISRAEL: A Palestinian suicide bomber, wearing an explosives belt strapped to his waist, climbed on to a bus in the northern city of Haifa yesterday, sat down at the rear, waited a few stops, and then detonated himself, turning the bus into a fireball and killing 15 people. Over 40 people were also injured in the attack, 10 of them seriously.
It was the first suicide attack in almost two months, and the first that Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's new rightist government, which was sworn in last week, has had to contend with. But, despite the fact that Mr Sharon now heads a significantly more hard-line cabinet, the government was not expected to order a massive military retaliation to the bombing, for fear it might interfere with the US campaign against Iraq.
The Prime Minister was meeting senior members of his cabinet late last night to discuss Israel's response, which could also come in the form of continued raids against Hamas deep inside the Gaza Strip.
The powerful early afternoon explosion transformed the bus, filled with students travelling to the University of Haifa, into a charred wreck and scattered bodies on the road. There was no immediate admission of responsibility, but Israeli security officials said they believed the bomber was a member of the militant Hamas group from the West Bank city of Hebron.
Eyewitnesses described seeing the roof ripped off the bus and passers-by trying to pour water on the burning vehicle and extricate the wounded trapped inside. "The centre of the bus lifted up into the air, the roof was torn off," said one man.
Another said he called to the firemen at the scene "to extinguish the flames coming from some of the people who were on fire". The force of the blast knocked down nearby palm trees, damaged parked cars and toppled street signs. Practised first-aid workers rapidly arrived and evacuated the wounded to nearby hospitals.
Predictably, the office of Mr Sharon issued a statement heaping responsibility for the attack on Palestinian Authority President Mr Yasser Arafat, while the authority released a statement condemning attacks on civilians.
Palestinian Minister Mr Saeb Erekat said he rejected "the Israeli government finger-pointing that the Palestinian Authority is responsible".
In recent weeks, in the absence of bomb attacks in major cities, Israelis have turned their attentions elsewhere - to a possible US strike against Iraq and the country's spluttering economy. But yesterday's bombing, after an almost eight-week hiatus, shattered the sense among many in the country that the military, with its reoccupation of the West Bank and daily raids and arrests of Palestinian militants, may have found a formula to stymie the bombers.
A significant number of ministers in Mr Sharon's new hard-line government support deporting Mr Arafat from the Occupied Territories, but with Israel not wanting to put a spoke in the wheels of the American war machine in the Gulf, the Palestinian leader was likely to remain untouched after yesterday's attack. "If I thought that by expelling Arafat it would help, I would do it. But it won't," said Interior Minister Mr Avraham Poraz, of the centrist Shinui party.
Even some of the more hawkish ministers sounded cautious yesterday when asked if they supported banishing Mr Arafat.
"We all understand the sensitivity at the moment," said Public Security Minister Mr Tzachi Hanegbi, referring to the situation with Iraq.
Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz was quoted as saying that Israel had to ensure it did not become an "obstacle" to a US assault on Iraq, and that the government had to continue with its "current policy."
Most observers said they did not expect a policy shift in the wake of the bombing, but some said Israel might step up its activities in the territories, including the raids deep in Gaza, in which dozens of Palestinians, most of them Hamas gunmen, but also civilians, have been killed in recent weeks.