Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 23, 1995 TAG: 9501230096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: BEIT LID, ISRAEL LENGTH: Medium
At least 65 others were wounded, some of them critically. Many were soldiers caught in the second explosion while rushing to attend the dead and dying from the first blast.
An outraged Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin rushed to the scene of the carnage.
``There is no doubt in my mind that this is another attempt by extreme Islamic terrorist groups to achieve the dual goals of killing Israelis and killing the peace process,'' Rabin declared.
``After the first explosion, I begged soldiers to leave the place, and then the second explosion took place,'' said an anguished witness, Moshe Nikol. "I cried like a child. Next to me lay the body of a soldier who moments earlier was helping me treat people.''
The fifth suicide bombing in Israel in nine months, it overshadowed Sunday's solemn national ceremonies to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi's Auschwitz death camp.
A chorus of new cries erupted Sunday among Israelis demanding suspension of peace talks with the Palestinians. This time, the demands came not just from bloodied victims, their relatives and opposition politicians, but also from the highest levels of Israel's government.
Street protests erupted throughout Israel as hundreds of Israelis demonstrating against Rabin's handling of security waved banners and chanted: ``Death to Arabs!'' and ``Rabin's a traitor! Rabin resign!''
``The government has to call on all relevant parties to rethink which way we are going,'' asserted an angry Israeli President Ezer Weizman while visiting bomb victims at a hospital in Kfar Saba near the blast site.
``We call it a peace process, which we hope to achieve. But right now it's a bloody process, and in a bloody process, you don't achieve peace. ... I would stop now the process for some time - I wouldn't like to say for how long - and rethink it.''
In Syria, a leader of Islamic Jihad (Holy War) claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamic Jihad is a militant Palestinian group opposed to the 1993 peace deal between Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.
In the Gaza Strip, an Islamic Jihad cell said the attacks were carried out to avenge activist Hani Abed, killed in November, and three Palestinian soldiers killed last month by Israeli soldiers.
The two suicide attackers, called ``heroes'' by Islamic Jihad, were identified as Salah Shakr, 25, and Anwar Sukar, 23.
Outside Sukar's house, Islamic activists chanted ``Death to America and Israel'' and said the bomber would be rewarded in paradise. Clearly distraught relatives cried, spat at the Islamic Jihad members and cursed them as ``dogs.''
The fact they came from Gaza, territory ceded to Arafat's Palestinian National Authority last year under the peace plan, stepped up the pressure on Rabin to deal firmly with the crisis.
The Israeli prime minister called his Cabinet into an emergency session Sunday night, and he argued the peace talks should move ahead. But the Cabinet voted unanimously to close the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank - barring thousands of Palestinians who commute to jobs in Israel.
Rabin said the explosions were about three minutes apart. The first erupted near a snack bar and kiosk at the Beit Lid junction of Israel Highways 4 and 57, a staging area for soldiers waiting to hitchhike or take buses for their bases. The second was set off by a man who triggered a suicide device after several soldiers chased him, Rabin said.
Arafat condemned the attack. Aides said he phoned Rabin to express his condolences.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune and the Associated Press contributed information to this story.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB