teenage Israeli gunman shot dead four people on a bus before being killed himself by an angry crowd.
The 19-year old man, identified as Eden Tsuberi, opened fire on passengers as the bus was passing through the Israeli Arab town of Shfaram near Haifa.
Tsuberi, who was seen wearing an army uniform and a Jewish skull cap, had apparently taken the weapon with him when left the army two months ago in protest over Sharon’s Gaza pull out plan, Israeli media reported.
"BIBLICAL CLAIM"
Israeli opponents of the Gaza pullout say the move is against what they see as a Biblical claim to the land and surrender to Palestinians. Soon after the shooting the man was killed by a mob that boarded the bus after the shooting, the website of the Israeli Haaretz newspaper said.
Police have been anticipating attacks from Jewish settlers and right wing groups opposing the Isreali withdrawal. Ikutiel Ben Yaacov, the founder of the far-right Jewish Legion group based in the West Bank settlement of Tapuah, shared police suspicions that such an attack might be aimed at disrupting Israel’s plan to leave the Gaza Strip.
"We hope that [Natan] Eden [Zadah]’s death will not have been in vain," Ben Yaacov told The Jerusalem Post newspaper. "Hs murder will derail this sadistic disengagement plan,"
he was quoted as saying.
"TERROR INCIDENT"
In published comments Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the incident a reprehensible
act by a "bloodthirsty terrorist". "This terror incident is a deliberate attempt to harm the relations between the citizens of Israel," he said.
The prime minister also suggested that the existence of the State of Israel was at stake. "Terror between civilians is the most dangerous thing for the future of Israel and its democratic stability," said Sharon, a reference to the Israeli Arabs who were believed to be killed by the young Jewish man.
Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab member of parliament, said at the scene that the dead were
Arabs and all residents of Shfaram, news reports said.
JEWISH SETTLER
Israeli media reported that the gunman was a Jewish settler from Tapuach in the West Bank, where many followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane live. Kahane, a controversial US-born rabbi, supported the forcible removal of Arabs from all of Israel and the West Bank. He was reportedly assassinated in New York City in 1990.
Ambulances had trouble getting through the crowds to take away the injured, some seriously, television footage showed. Local people in Shfaram accused the police of double standards.
"If this attack had occurred in a Jewish neighborhood and the attacker was Arab, he would have been killed immediately," one unnamed witness was quoted as saying by The Jerusalem Post. "The police came and they didn’t do anything… They were holding him alive in the bus."
THOUSANDS ATTACK
A crowd of thousands gathered around the site of the attack and surrounded the bus, where the attacker’s body still lay until police removed it nearly five hours after the incident, reporters said. During the rescue of the body, several policemen were apparently wounded moderately to lightly from objects thrown at them by Shfaram residents.
Hadash MK Muhammad Barakei, who had joined the mobs in Shfaram, blamed the attack on what he said was a campaign of incitement by Jews against Arabs. "This is not the act of a single individual extremist," Barakei said. "It comes from a culture of incitement,"
he told The Jerusalem Post.
Security had been stepped up as Sharon made clear he will continue with the Gaza withdrawal. Under what is known as the "disengagement plan", 21 Gaza settlements will be dismantled, and more than 8,000 Jews removed from their homes. Israeli officials have reportedly said they expect about half of the settlers slated for evacuation will refuse to leave. (With BosNewsLife Research, BosNewsLife News Center and reports from Israel).
