Three Buses Explode in Terrorist Attack on Israel
Three empty buses exploded in a Tel Aviv suburb on Thursday night after detonators went off at the wrong time in a suspected Iran-linked terrorist attack. No injuries were reported. Israeli police neutralized two other bombs in the area.
All five explosives were reportedly set to go off simultaneously, but three bombs were set to detonate at 9 p.m. instead of 9 a.m., Israeli officials explained. They said “hundreds could have died” had the bombs gone off when intended.
Public transportation across the country was suspended to investigate all buses, trains and light-rails. Police are on a manhunt for suspects.
Miracle? Some are saying it was a miracle no one was hurt. In one incident, a passenger noticed a suspicious package on the backseat of one of the buses and took it to the driver. The driver then drove to a nearby terminal, and everyone got off the bus. The driver called the police bomb squad, then the bus exploded.
Terrorism: A note was found with one of the bombs that read in Hebrew and Arabic, “Revenge from the Tulkarm refugee camp,” referring to a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, often used as a hub for terrorists.
Hamas’s Tulkarem battalion later published a statement: “The revenge of the martyrs will not be forgotten as long as the occupier is present on our land. This is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.”
Iranian involvement: Israel’s security officials believe the plan for the attack may have come from Iran and was carried out by Hamas terrorists from the West Bank. Iran supplies and trains both Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist cells in the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday the Israel Defense Forces (idf) would carry out a “powerful operation” against “terrorist hot spots” in the West Bank. He also ordered the Israel Police and Shin Bet to “increase preventive activity in Israeli cities against further terrorist attacks.”
In light of the severe terror attack attempts by Palestinian terror organizations against the civilian population in Israel, I instructed the idf to increase the intensity of the counterterrorism activity in the Tulkarm refugee camp, and all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria. We will hunt down the terrorists to the bitter end and destroy the terror infrastructure in the camps used as front-line posts of the Iranian evil axis. Residents who give shelter to terror will pay a heavy price.
—Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister
Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, and Israel routinely suffers from attacks carried out by it and its terrorist proxies, such as Hamas.
To understand the motive of these attacks and why they take place so often, read “Ugly Truths About Islamic Terrorism.”
