a suicide bombing at the front of a bus killed 11 and wounded dozens.
Israeli troops reportedly moved into Bethlehem and arrested two suspected Members of Hamas, the radical movement believed to be responsible for Jerusalem’s first suicide attack in four months.
Witnesses and police had identified the bomber as a 23-year old man from Bethlehem, who they said detonated his device just after a group of children boarded the bus in west Jerusalem.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Ron Proser told reporters that the bus was packed with school children and people going to work.
"BLOWN TO PIECES"
"Israel is committed to peace but we cannot wake up day in and day out to see our loved ones being blown to pieces. This can’t go on," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
As rescue workers tried to clean up blood and possible body parts, leaders at the NATO summit in the Czech capital Prague condemned the violence.
United States President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke jointly of their shock at what Blair termed Israel’s "latest terrorist outrage."
"We mourn the loss of life," said Bush. "It remains the United State’s goal to see two independent states -Israel and Palestine – living side-by-side in peace."
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY BLAMED
However at the scene of the explosion itself, outspoken Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, suggested that words alone are not enough and that it was time to pressure Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, to stop the bombing.
"The bombing’s not going to stop as long as Yasser Arafat wants it to Continue," Olmert said, according to the well informed International Christian Embassy Jerusalen (ICEJ) News Service. "He wants to cover the political process in Israel in blood," ahead of the upcoming elections, Olmert added.
Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Saeb Erakat, denied the Palestinian Authority’s involvement in the latest attack, and reportedly said the world should also remember the "nine Palestinians that have been killed in the last 24 hours at the hands of the Israeli army."
MISSIONARY KILLED
The bloodshed in Israel came as news emerged that across the border in Lebanon an American woman missionary was gunned down early Thursday, November 21, in southern in the clinic where she worked helping Palestinian refugees.
The woman was identified as 31-year old Bonnie Whiterall, a nurse assistant at church-run clinic in the port city of Sidon about 45 kilometres (apr. 28 miles) south of the capital Beirut.
It was not known if the crime was politically motivated but anti- American sentiment has risen in Lebanon since a Palestinian uprising against U.S. ally Israel began two years ago, the Reuters news agency said.
