See below for updates
A palestinian suicide bomber has murdered two people after blowing himself up in an Eilat bakery.
“We were sitting and drinking coffee some five meters from the site….Suddenly we heard a large explosion and I immediately thought that it was a suicide bomber.“When we went outside we saw that the place had been destroyed and there were body parts everywhere..”
“It was awful – there was smoke, pieces of flesh all over the place,” he said.He told Israel Radio that he saw “a man with a black coat and a bag. For Eilat, where it is hot, it is strange to see someone walking with a coat. I said to myself, ‘Why is this idiot dressed that way?’ Seconds later, I heard a huge blast. The building shook.”
Investigations into Monday morning’s suicide bombing in Eilat, the first to strike Israel’s southernmost city, indicated that the 21-year-old bomber (Muhammed Faisal al-Saksak, a resident of the Gaza Strip and member of the Fatah-affiliated Aksa Martyrs Brigades) may not have intended to detonate his explosives pack in a bakery, but planned to execute the attack in a more crowded area.According to reports by security sources, at least two local residents had spotted Saksak, whose heavy coat and large bag aroused their suspicions, and called the police. Channel 2 reported that one of the people who alerted local police was the taxi driver who took Saksak into town.Saksak, who appeared to have stopped at the bakery for coffee before reaching his final destination, blew himself up after he saw the police cars approaching.
“We knew that he was going to carry out a martyrdom operation,” Saqsaq’s brother, Naeem, told reporters at the family home in the northern Gaza Strip. “His mother and father prayed for him to succeed.”
Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the attack together with two other groups, posted a statement on its Web site Monday saying that it had engineered the bombing in an attempt to “focus Palestinians’ attention away from killing each other,” Sky News reported.
8:55PM: This from an email sent to me earlier today:
It is 3.00pm Israel time and I have just watched CNN cover the Eilat bombing.
1) The reporter made 2 comments to reduce the effect of the tragedy.
First, he said that although this was the first bombing for nearly a year, since mid 2006 nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis. No mention of Kassams etc.
Then, CNN led immediately in to a story on the cluster bombs issue – where Israel may well have used the bombs in a manner that violated agreements with the USA.
2) But compare this reporting to the next item on CNN. A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed a policeman. No qualifications. No additions. Straight reporting.
From what I have heard from other people, this is typical of what has happened on other channels.
9:17PM: Further to the previous update, the Sydney Morning Herald have done the same thing.
Yesterday’s attack ends a long period of quiet within Israel. According to the Israeli human rights group B’tshelem, killings of Israeli citizens in the occupied territories and Israel reached a low of 23 last year, including six soldiers. In the same period the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces rose to 660, B’tshelem found, half of them non-combatants and 141 of these minors.
9:25PM: The most disgraceful headline of the day comes courtesy of the Associated Press: Suicide bombing kills 4 in Israel
In case you don’t get it, the “4” are the 3 innocent victims plus the 1 terrorist who snuffed out their lives.
