
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994                   TAG: 9404070333
SECTION: NATL/INT                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: AFULA, ISRAEL                                LENGTH: Medium

ISLAMIC KAMIKAZE KILLS 8 ON BUS

In the most serious terrorist attack inside Israel since 1989, eight people were killed and 44 others wounded Wednesday when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up his car beside a bus in this northern Israeli town.

The explosion turned the bus into a storm of flying metal and flames, slashing some victims to pieces and horribly burning others.

Many, including several who died, were Israeli teen-agers preparing to board the bus, which had stopped near two schools where classes were letting out. ``Two boys were burning like torches,'' said Albert Amos, a driving instructor who told of how he had ripped flaming clothes from one of the youngsters. Both boys survived.

The attack was the work of a young West Bank man loyal to the militant Islamic Hamas group, and Hamas took responsibility for it over mosque loudspeakers in the Gaza Strip.

Underscoring the indiscriminate nature of the attack was the fact that some of the victims were Israeli Arabs, including a 30-year-old woman who was killed.

The car bombing enraged Israelis but did not completely surprise them. Since the Hebron mosque killings Feb. 25 in which a Jewish settler killed at least 29 Muslim worshipers, most people in this country had suspected that it was a question of time before a Palestinian group staged a reprisal raid.

And Wednesday was a day laden with symbolism: for Palestinians, the end of a 40-day Muslim period of mourning for the Hebron victims; for Israelis, the start of an annual 24-hour period of commemorating the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

At a solemn ceremony Wednesday night at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin did not mention the Afula bombing. But President Ezer Weizman did, saying that as the day of remembrance approached, ``we paid a heavy price, because we are Jews, for our desire to live peaceful and independent lives in the Land of Israel.''

Government officials said they would not let the attack deter them from negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, even though opposition leaders demanded that the talks be halted, just as the PLO had suspended them for five weeks after the Hebron killings.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB