exploded in Israel Tuesday, August 31, the first suicide blasts in half a year, Israeli officials said. The blasts reportedly destroyed the two buses almost simultaneously in the main street of Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel, 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Gaza City.
Another source, the well informed International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), said the explosions occurred just before 3 pm local time aboard buses number 12 and 24, traveling close to the municipality building on Yitzhak Riger Street.
"Rescue services called on all regional ambulances to come to the scene and have confirmed "many casualties," said the ICEJ in a statement seen by BosNewsLife.
Up to 80 people were believed to have been wounded, many of them critically.
JEWISH SETTLEMENTS
The blasts came despite promises by Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, earlier Tuesday that the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip "could begin as early next year."
Israel Radio and Lebanon’s Hizbollah-run al-Manar television station both reported that two Palestinian suicide bombers carried out the attacks, news reports said.
There was Israeli television footage showing images of two burned-out buses, with flames shooting through the roof of one of the vehicles. At least two bodies, covered in white sheets, could be seen on the ground nearby, reporters said.
HAMAS SUSPECTED
ICEJ News Service quoted Israeli officials as saying that they suspect the militant group Hamas was behind the attack, and that they believe it was coordinated by Ibrahim Hamed, a relative of Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. The Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told reporters however that "the Palestinian Authority condemns any attacks that target civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinian."
The blasts came just hours after Israeli soldiers foiled an earlier suicide attack on Tuesday, by preventing a Palestinian man carrying an explosive device in his trousers from passing through the Erez Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, the ICEJ News Service and other news reports said.
It was reportedly the second suicide bombing thwarted in Gaza this week, after the army reportedly shot and killed an alleged armed bomber equipped with an explosive vest trying to infiltrate a Jewish community on Sunday, August 30.
In January, a female Palestinian suicide bomber killed four Israelis when she blew herself up at the crossing.
