Grenades Kill Israeli, Hurt 70 at Judaism’s Holiest Site

Unidentified assailants threw at least two hand grenades into a crowd of young Israeli soldiers and well-wishers minutes after a military induction ceremony at Judaism’s holiest site Wednesday night, killing one person and injuring at least 70, many of them seriously.

The attack, the worst such incident in the city in more than two years, occurred near the Western Wall, the only remnant of the Second Temple complex destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 and a site revered by Jews worldwide as a place of prayer and pilgrimage.

“All the soldiers were in formation to get (back) on the buses” which were to return them to their bases, one witness said. “There were two explosions. There were several seriously wounded, who needed (blood) transfusions. There was general panic. . . . There was crying everywhere.”

The witness, who did not give his name, said his 11-year-old daughter was among the wounded. His clothing was covered with blood.

“I took my daughter in my own hands to the ambulance,” he said.

The single fatality from Wednesday’s attack was also a civilian, according to police, who did not immediately reveal the victim’s identity pending notification of relatives.

A large plaza in front of the Western Wall, often referred to as the Wailing Wall, is frequently used for special Israeli military ceremonies.

The one Wednesday was a swearing-in ceremony for new recruits into the crack Givati Infantry Brigade. The young men, mostly 18 or 19 years old, were recent high school graduates who had been in the army for about two months.

Israeli military sources said the incident occurred at about 9 p.m. The recruits and their families had left the plaza for the troop buses, parked just outside Dung Gate, one of seven functioning gates into Jerusalem’s walled Old City and the one nearest the Western Wall.

Dozens of ambulances were on the scene within minutes, and police bomb experts stepped over pools of blood as they combed the area looking for more explosives. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin arrived from Tel Aviv late Wednesday to inspect the scene.

15 Arabs Detained

Police sources said 15 Arab suspects were detained after the incident, and troops were still searching a cordoned section of the Old City near the wall early today. According to Reuters news agency, security sources said two guerrillas launched the assault and a third drove a getaway car.

(In Orange County, Rabbi Bernard P. King and William Shane, co-chairmen of the Jewish Federation of the county’s Community Relations Committee, issued a statement Wednesday night deploring the attack.

(“No words can express our shock, outrage and sorrow at the death and injury wrought by terrorist grenades this afternoon and express the solidarity of the Jewish people and all civilized people against an evil that strikes so deliberately and cowardly against Jews,” the statement said.)

While there was a series of knife and handgun attacks on individuals in and near the Old City late last year and early this year, security officials announced last April that they had captured a gang believed to be responsible for the worst of those incidents.

Larger-scale assaults or bombings are extremely rare in the ancient walled city, which features holy places considered sacred by the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Given that sensitivity, Israeli security is generally tight, particularly around the Western Wall and especially now, during the period of the Jewish high holy days.

Anyone entering the plaza in front of the Western Wall must pass through one of three military checkpoints on the periphery where their personal belongings are searched. There is no permanent checkpoint at Dung Gate, although army foot patrols keep a close watch on the entrance.

Military sources could not recall any terrorist incidents near the Western Wall.

Earlier Attacks

On Sept. 16, 1978, an explosion at the Jaffa Gate, at the western entrance to the Old City, wounded seven people. And three years later a hand grenade thrown into a group of mostly Italian tourists near the Damascus Gate, on the north, killed two people and wounded 27. But both those incidents occurred the equivalent of several city blocks from the wall.

Wednesday’s attack was the most serious in the Jerusalem area since April, 1984, when three terrorists who had infiltrated from Lebanon were involved in a rifle and grenade assault on one of the new city’s main shopping streets, killing one passer-by and wounding 58.

Four months before that, a terrorist bomb planted on an Israeli passenger bus exploded near Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl military cemetery, killing six and wounding 41.

“We had many months of quiet, and I prayed it would continue,” Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek commented in a television interview Wednesday night. “But now we had a very serious attack.”

‘Let’s Not Be Frightened’

Kollek, however, called for Israelis to keep coming to the Old City. “Let’s not be too frightened to continue strengthening Jerusalem,” he said.

The relative quiet had extended beyond Jerusalem in recent months, with Israeli officials claiming that disturbances of all kinds in predominately Arab East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were down 50% so far this year compared with 1985.

In the last few days, however, two Jews were stabbed to death in separate incidents in Gaza, and a Jewish settler was wounded in Hebron. Wednesday’s attack is thus likely to trigger calls for a new security crackdown.