ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996 TAG: 9602270045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JERUSALEM
SOURCE: Associated Press
Militant Palestinians avenged last month's assassination of their chief bombmaker with two suicide bombings Sunday morning that killed 25 people, wounded 80 and imperiled the peace process.
The grisly images of the explosions were broadcast on Israeli television all day Sunday after the attacks.
The explosions, on a Jerusalem bus and at a soldier's stop in Ashkelon, ended a half-year lull in violence and were the deadliest attacks in Israel since the late 1970s.
With only three months before May 29 elections, these attacks are a blow to Prime Minister Shimon Peres' plans to move forward in peacemaking.
The dead included two young Americans. The U.S. embassy identified them as Matthew Mitchell Eisenfeld, 25, of West Hartford, Conn., who was studying at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, and Sara Duker, 22, of Teaneck, N.J., who was studying at Hebrew University.
Up to now, Peres has maintained a comfortable lead over his challenger, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. But terror attacks such as Sunday's bombings could persuade voters in the middle of Israel's political spectrum that going ahead with Peres' peace agenda is too risky.
Ultra-Orthodox protesters vented their anger at Peres when, ringed by dozens of police, he visited the site in Jerusalem. Dozens booed him, chanting, ``With blood and fire, we will throw out Peres.''
The prime minister said there was no miracle cure for suicide attacks. ``I know deep in my heart that on the way to win peace, we shall have to pay a heavy toll for it,'' he told a news conference.
The first blast went off at 6:48 a.m in downtown Jerusalem, ripping through the crowded No. 18 bus and hurling bodies into the air.
The blast produced a gory landscape of twisted metal, bloodstained clothes, broken glass and the hulking skeleton of a city bus that moments before had been packed full of Israelis on their way to work and school.
The bomb hurled bodies as far as 50 yards.
``This was complete hell,'' said Avi Ravivo, 37, who jumped from his car to help pull seven bodies alive and dead from the shattered and burning bus. ``No movie director possibly could have created such a scene.''
Police said the Jerusalem blast was caused by at least 22 pounds of explosives - enveloped by nails and ball bearings to augment its deadly effect - and carried in a kit bag by a young Palestinian disguised as an Israeli who had boarded the bus just minutes earlier.
The bomb's concussion rattled windows a mile away and nearly knocked 24-year-old Danny Pinto off his motorcycle as he drove up the busy Jaffa Road to his job at a nearby bakery.
``There was so much smoke and fire and blood. And many, many pieces of bodies. It was terrible,'' he said.
``The bus went up into the air,'' said Yigal Kara, a witness. ``I saw parts of bodies. A head fell in front of us to the ground.''
About 45 minutes later, in Ashkelon, a suicide bomber reportedly disguised as an Israeli soldier blew himself up at a hitchhiking stop for troops returning to base after weekend leaves. Two people were killed and 33 wounded.
The death toll included the two bombers, police said.
Hamas said the bombings avenged their chief bombmaker, Yehiya Ayyash, who was killed in the Gaza Strip by a rigged cellular phone in a Jan. 5 operation widely attributed to Israel.
Sunday also marked the second anniversary of the Hebron mosque massacre in which a Jewish settler shot and killed 29 Muslim worshipers.
Peres responded swiftly to Sunday's bombings, sealing the West Bank and Gaza Strip and suspending contacts with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority until the dead were buried.
The prime minister said he would wage an uncompromising war against Hamas and its smaller sister group, Islamic Jihad, but added he would honor the timetable of the Israel-PLO peace agreement.
Arafat also denounced the attacks.
``I condemn it completely,'' Arafat said. ``It is not only against civilians. It is against the whole peace process, and I am sending my condolences to the families of the victims and to Prime Minister Shimon Peres.''
Peres said Arafat phoned him shortly after the blasts and promised to carry out arrests among Islamic militants.
Late Sunday, Palestinian police arrested four Hamas militants in Gaza City, Hamas sources said. Palestinian police increased their patrols and presence throughout the Gaza Strip.
In Washington, President Clinton also condemned the bombings.
``The enemies of peace have once more attempted to turn back progress toward a new Middle East in which Arabs and Israelis may live in peace,'' he said. ``But they have not and will not succeed.''
Sunday night, makeshift memorials of candles and bits of wreckage had been assembled at the bomb sites, and bitterness about the cycle of violence remained.
Eyal Cohen, who lives on the Jerusalem street where the blast occurred, said: ``People die and they talk peace, and again people die.''
Cox News Service contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Israeli police and other officials inspect theby CNBwreckage of a bus destroyed by a suicide bomber in downtown
Jerusalem. The explosion was one of two Sunday that killed 25
people. color. 2. Relatives and friends mourn Arik Gabai at his
funeral Sunday in Jerusalem. KEYWORDS: FATALITY