A massive explosion rocked occupied Jerusalem's central bus station on Wednesday afternoon where at least four were killed and 25 people had been wounded, Al-Manar TV correspondent said.The explosion occurred shortly after 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) and shook buildings hundreds of meters away, witnesses said.
Micky Rosenfeld, the foreign press spokesman for the Israel Police, said that a bag that was left near the bus station exploded when the bus passed. "This was not a suicide attack," Rosenfeld said.
Police have reported that the explosion in Jerusalem was caused by a medium sized explosive device which was set near a public phone booth adjacent to the Jerusalem Convention Center in the center of the occupied city.
Sirens echoed through the city as dozens of ambulances and fire engines raced to the scene, with media reports taking of at least three people who were very badly injured.
The blast occurred as tensions ran high when Israeli occupation martyred eight Palestinians, four of them children, in two separate attacks on Gaza City. The Islamic Jihad movement, the Al Quds Brigades, vowed to step up its attacks on Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his scheduled trip to Moscow in the wake of the Jerusalem bombing.
An explosion near a bus in West Jerusalem has injured at least 31 people, one critically, police in Israeli said.
Scores of ambulances converged on the area near the central bus station and a city conference hall in a Jewish neighbourhood of downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Jerusalem, said that at least one person was critically injured by the explosion.
“There were around 31 people wounded, but initial reports say that no-one has died,” our correspondent said,
“There has been no claim of responsibility for attack, although police and other officials concluded that this was Palestinian terror attack.”
Micky Rosenfeld, the foreign press spokesman for the Israel Police, told Al Jazeera that a device in a bag that was left in a phone booth near the bus station exploded when the bus passed.
"This was not a suicide attack," Rosenfeld said.
Live television showed a bus with broken windows and bloodstains on the pavement. It did not appear from the television pictures that the explosion occurred inside the vehicle.
Bombings have been rare in Jerusalem in the past several years. Palestinians carried out dozens of bombings in the city at the height of an uprising that began in 2000.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said "tensions in Israel have high in the past 48 hours".
At least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed in Israeli mortar attacks and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. The deaths occurred in two separate attacks on the eastern part of Gaza City, witnesses said.
The Israeli military said it was responding to rocket attacks from Gaza. It also confirmed it had fired mortar rounds towards the eastern outskirts of Gaza City on Tuesday, shortly after four rockets hit Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, postponed his departure to Russia after Wednesday's bombing, his office said.
Netanyahu had been scheduled to hold talks with Russian leaders in Moscow and return on Thursday.
One settler killed and 39 others injured in an explosion in Jerusalem
[ 23/03/2011 - 09:54 PM ]
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- One Israeli settler was killed and 39 others were injured as a result of the explosion that took place on Wednesday evening at a bus station in occupied Jerusalem, according to Israeli occupation sources.
Israeli occupation medical sources said that about half of those injured are in moderate condition.
Yedioth Ahranoth said that the Israeli occupation suspects that the explosion was as a result of a bomb placed in a rubbish bin and detonated by remote control and suspect that Palestinians were behind it.
The explosion took place as the number 74 bus to Maleh Adomim passed by near the International Conference Center in Jerusalem.
The occupation security raised the state of alert following the explosion and the occupation government Prime Minister postponed his visit to Moscow.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
No comments:
Post a Comment