OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, June 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Sixteen
people were killed and more than 70 others injured when an explosion
ripped through a bus on Jaffa street in the west of occupied Jerusalem
on Wednesday, June 11, police said.
"The
bus was torn to shreds. There was a massive blast, it's a horrific
scene," one witness was quoted as saying by public radio.
Shortly
after the bus attack, six Palestinians were killed when an Israeli
helicopter fired a missile on a car in the Shajayah neighborhood in Gaza
City, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
“A
Palestinian blew himself in the Israeli bus driving in the bustling
streets” near a large market and in a rush hour where large number of
workers were getting of their work,” Al-Jazeera correspondent
said on air by the telephone.
The
attack came a day after a senior Hamas leader survived an Israeli
assassination attempt in the Gaza Strip which claimed the lives of two
other Palestinians and sparked calls for bloody revenge by the
resistance movement.
The
bomber reportedly stepped on a bus when it was stopped at a major
intersection, near the entrance of a shopping mall.
The
street, west Jerusalem's main thoroughfare, has been by hit several
Palestinian attacks since the start of the intifada, or uprising,
against Israeli occupation in September 2000.
There
was no immediate claim for the Jerusalem blast but senior Hamas leader
Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, who had escaped the helicopter missile attacks
with light wounds, vowed from his hospital bed "not to leave one
Jew in Palestine".
"Israel
is targeting Palestinian civilians, so Israeli civilians should be
targeted. From now on all Israeli people are targets," said the
spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, on Tuesday.
The
attack also comes a week after Israel and the Palestinians affirmed
their commitment to a U.S.-backed peace roadmap to end the 32 months of
bloodshed at a summit at Aqaba, Jordan.
Palestinian
prime minister Mahmud Abbas vowed at the summit to end the armed
uprising against Israeli occupation, but was rebuffed by resistance
groups, including Hamas.
The
Jerusalem attack was vehemently condemned by U.S. President George W.
Bush.
