against Israeli targets as part of what Israel’s Government described as a "dangerous escalation" news reports said Friday, November 29.
Most people died when suicide bombers rammed a jeep packed with explosives into the lobby of an Israeli-owned hotel north of Mombassa. Minutes earlier an Israeli passenger airliner on the return trip from the coastal Kenyan city came under an surface-to-air missile attack shortly after take-off, news reports said.
The plane landed later safely in Tel Aviv on a day when over 400 Israelis narrowly escaped death in the wake of simultaneous terrorist attacks in Kenya, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the attacks "a dangerous escalation of international terrorism". His Likud party’s leadership rival, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, appeared deeply shocked speaking to Israeli television shortly after casting his ballot in today’s crucial party primaries.
HOTEL EXPLOSION
Latest reports indicated that at least thirteen died in the Paradise Hotel explosion shortly after 8.30 am local time, including three Israelis, two of them young children. Witnesses said the hotel, which had just received a bus-load of 60 Israeli tourists from an incoming charter flight, was completely destroyed.
But many of the estimated 140 guests escaped without injury, having left the lobby for their rooms minutes before the attack. Eighteen Israelis are among the 80 wounded, but the 200 local Kenyan workers bore the brunt of the casualties, the ICEJ News Service said.
The force of the explosion could be heard in Mombassa over 25 kilometres (approx. 15 miles) away, witnesses reported.
Experts said the attacks bear the hallmarks of Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qa’ida network, which has attacked has struck in East Africa before, being widely held responsible for the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania which left 437 dead..
ISRAEL ROCKED
The Kenya attacks came shortly before Israel itself was rocked by violence as well Thursday, November 28.
Palestinian militants reportedly sprayed gunfire and tossed grenades at a Likud party polling station in the northern Israeli town of Beit She’an during the leadership primary, leaving at least five Israelis dead and over 20 injured.
"The carnage comes on the day Israelis are choosing between Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and chief rival Netanyahu, the newly appointed Foreign Minister. While the crucial balloting would normally provide enough drama for one day, the nation also is still reeling from this morning’s news of simultaneous terror strikes on an Israeli-owned hotel and airline charter flight in Mombassa, Kenya," the ICEJ said.
