Israel Tightens Blockade After Bus Stop Attack

Authorities tightened Israel’s blockade of Palestinian territories Wednesday and vowed tough punishment after a Palestinian driver mowed through a crowd of Israeli soldiers and commuters at a bus stop, killing eight people and injuring more than 20.

The attack near Tel Aviv was the single deadliest on Israelis in nearly four years and heightened pressure on the incoming government of Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon to stop the bloodshed convulsing the region--violence that has escalated since Sharon’s election last week.

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat denounced violence generally but dismissed Wednesday’s incident as a traffic accident, while other Palestinian officials said it was a “natural” response to Israel’s “aggression” against their people.

Later, however, Arafat condemned the bus attack in a phone conversation with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told Associated Press.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak deplored the attack as “abominable” and barred Palestinian officials from Israel while weighing retaliation. Israel blamed what it described as a clear act of terrorism on a climate of hatred and incitement fomented by Arafat and other Palestinian leaders.

The driver, Khalil abu Olbeh, is a 35-year-old father of five from the Gaza Strip who had been cleared by Israeli security agencies to work in Israel. His family said he was despondent over the killings of Palestinians and his own financial hardships since the collapse of the Palestinian economy, which has been dealt punishing sanctions by Israel during the past 4 1/2 months of violence.

President Bush urged calm and an end to “the tragic cycle of violent action and reaction between Israel and the Palestinians.” Powell is scheduled to visit Israel and Gaza next week.

The dead soldiers--three men and four women--ranged in age from 18 to 21. The eighth fatality was a 30-year-old civilian woman. Earlier reports had put the number of dead at nine.

Julie Weiner, 21, emigrated from France three years ago and was to have started officers’ training the day she died. Described by friends as a charming youth, she had overruled her parents--who were fearful of the dangers--in moving to Israel.

Two other victims, Ophir Magidish, 20, and David Iluz, 20, friends since kindergarten, had missed their regular army shuttle and were catching a public bus to their base when they were killed.

The attack occurred on a sunny morning at an intersection in the heart of Israel, on the southeastern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Abu Olbeh had held a permit to work in Israel for the last five years and passed rigorous Israeli security checks.

On Wednesday morning, he drove an Israeli bus full of Palestinian workers from Gaza to the Tel Aviv area and dropped them off. Under the terms of his employment, he was supposed to wait in a parking lot until the workers returned in the afternoon, then drive them home to Gaza.

Instead, he headed south on Highway 44 and drove to an intersection near the town of Azur, where large crowds of soldiers and civilians waited for buses, as they do every morning.

Witnesses said the bus slowed, then jumped the curb and roared into the crowd.

“I suddenly saw a bus speeding up on the curb, and it kept coming,” said Moshe Saroussi, a 19-year-old soldier. “It was like a wave from the sea that covered us.”

Bodies were hurled in the air and strewn by the roadside, along with scattered shoes, boots, backpacks and pieces of clothing. The wounded walked in a daze and cried for help or for their mothers.

Israeli soldiers often hitchhike or take public transportation across the country. They are frequently seen at the side of roads in uniform and on occasion have been targeted by terrorists and kidnappers. Abu Olbeh would have seen the soldiers gathering at Azur every day he passed by.

Abu Olbeh was one of about 17,000 Palestinian workers who have permits to enter and work inside Israel. As a family man who had never been jailed, he fit the profile of a typical good risk, said Lt. Col. Yarden Vatikay, a spokesman for the division of the army that handles civilian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank.

“He’s clean. He’s known to us. I can only speculate that something snapped,” Vatikay said. “In this atmosphere, that’s what happens. Someone normal becomes incited and does an inhuman act. Why does he snap? It’s the brainwash, the incitement, the hatred.”

The attack came less than 24 hours after Israeli forces assassinated an officer from Arafat’s elite bodyguard unit, and there was initial speculation that the driver acted in retaliation.

But members of Abu Olbeh’s family in the Gaza neighborhood of Sheik Radwan pointed to his financial troubles. They said they were surprised at his actions and denied that he belonged to any militant Islamic organization. Rather, they said, he was angry at the escalation of fighting in the past week in Gaza.

“He was upset, like any Palestinian,” his 32-year-old wife, Manal, said in her home, surrounded by her children and dozens of well-wishers who sipped small cups of sweet coffee.

After Abu Olbeh rammed the bus into the crowd, he led police on a 19-mile chase south toward the Gaza Strip before finally crashing into a truck. Police shot and captured him, then transported him to a hospital, where he underwent surgery. One leg had to be amputated, officials said.

In addition to reimposing an absolute closure of Palestinian territories, Israel said it was shutting border crossings to Jordan and Egypt for Palestinians and banning flights out of Gaza’s airport, except for travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the hajj pilgrimage.

Ephraim Sneh, Israel’s deputy defense minister, acknowledged the Catch-22 of such punitive measures.

“The harsher the measures are, the worse the [Palestinian] economic situation grows,” he told Israeli television. “The more they starve, the more the hatred and despair become, and with it the feeling that there is nothing to lose. When you open the borders, there is always a risk.”

Israel has been under international pressure to lift the closure. At least 15 countries, including the United States, petitioned Israel on Tuesday to help ease the economic difficulties facing the Palestinian Authority, said Israeli Foreign Ministry director Alon Liel.

Since the current violence began in late September, the Palestinian economy has lost more than $1 billion, according to U.N. estimates. Israel has refused to transfer tax money to the Palestinian Authority, causing salaries to go unpaid and unemployment to soar, according to the United Nations. More than one-third of the Palestinian work force is now unemployed.

Sharon, whose history includes harsh actions against the Palestinians, said he blames Wednesday’s carnage on Arafat.

“What happened this morning only makes it clear that the Palestinian terror organizations do not distinguish between Tel Aviv, Hebron, Hadera, Ariel,” he said, naming cities in Israel proper and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. “Terror hits Israeli citizens wherever they are. I view with the utmost importance the need to take the steps necessary to restore security to the lives of Israeli citizens.”

Wilkinson reported from Azur and Maharaj from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Fayed abu Shamallah in Gaza contributed to this report.