Attack Called ‘a New Depth of Depravity’

The votive candles, placed to remember the dead and wounded, flickered gently in the Thursday afternoon breeze at a spot just outside the bombed-out Hebrew University cafeteria.

Next to them were flowers, some of them wreaths with black bunting draped across them. Students and dignitaries alike came to this spot on the Mt. Scopus campus to pay their respects to the seven people killed--five of them Americans--and 80 wounded in Wednesday’s bombing of the Frank Sinatra International Students Center cafeteria.

U.S. Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former student at Hebrew University, placed a wreath on the spot on behalf of the American people, then clasped his hands and lowered his head for a moment of silence.

“We have grieved with all the people of Israel as they have faced Palestinian terrorism,” Kurtzer said. “Now that five American citizens have been killed, our grief is even deeper.”

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it revenge for the Israeli bombing in Gaza City last week that killed the leader of the Islamic group’s military wing and 14 others, most of them children. The group also issued a statement Thursday saying it would kill 100 Israelis for every one of its leaders who is assassinated.

Then, in something of a surprise, Hamas spokesman Abdulaziz Rantisi apologized for the deaths of any “non-Zionists.” He said, however, that they shouldn’t have been at the cafeteria because he considers the university to be occupied land and a battleground for the Palestinian cause.

But Kurtzer said the group had crossed the line when it attacked a place that had become a worldwide symbol of cooperation among the Middle East’s nationalities and religions.

“The terrorist murderers--those who sent them and those whose action and inaction contributed to this despicable act--have descended to a new depth of depravity,” he said. “They have violated the sanctuary of a university in which Israelis, Arabs, Jews, Muslims and Christians study together. It is not enough that Palestinians and other Arabs have condemned this act of terrorism. It is absolutely imperative that they work actively to stop terrorism immediately.”

On Thursday morning, a message from university President Menachem Magidor was posted throughout the campus.

“We must not give up,” he said. “We must bite our lip and continue. Giving up on what we are trying to create in a university would be to succumb to terror.”

Magidor also sent a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other ministers asking the government to increase security for all Israeli universities to prevent further attacks.

Meanwhile, police questioned several Arabs working at the university as part of their probe. Investigators have speculated that the bomb may have been planted with the help of someone from within the school.

The bombing marked a turn from the trademark suicide bomber, which has become a grim part of the Israeli landscape in the last 21 months.

By midday Thursday, officials had finally released the names of all the Americans killed in the bombing, including Marla Bennett, 24, of San Diego. She had been doing graduate work at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and Hebrew University and was to have returned to California today.

Among the others killed was Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, an assistant director of graduate studies for the university’s Rothberg International School in New York. She had arrived in Jerusalem the day before the bombing, escorting a group of American students. The director of the international school in Jerusalem, Menachem Milson, said he spent much of Wednesday morning with her in a business meeting.

“After the meeting she went with a colleague to have some lunch,” Milson said. “She was a very dear person. It is a great loss to her family and to us.”

The other dead Americans were identified as Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Susquehanna Township, Pa.; David Gritz, 24, of Peru, Mass., who held French and American citizenship; and Dina Carter, 37, of Jerusalem, who also had Israeli citizenship. No other details about her were immediately available.

The two slain Israelis, Lavina Shapira, 53, and David Ludovisky, 29, were to be buried Thursday in Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said the bodies of the slain Americans would be flown home late Thursday night.

The day after the bombing was also a time of reflection, as students and faculty alike sought to evaluate what it would mean for the future of the school and the relationships within it.

The chairman of the student union, Koby Cohen, said that the peaceful coexistence in the school was being tested and that it will take time “to overcome this trauma.”

Yosef Amin, 26, an Arab student from northern Israel, said he expected to be looked at differently in the wake of the attack.

“The relations after the bombing will be less pleasant, I think,” he said. “One can take the campus as a microcosm that reflects the Israeli society at large, where Israeli Arabs are always perceived as potential suspects.”

Amin and others said that while relations are polite, they are often superficial, with almost no interaction outside the classroom and study sessions.

Gil Peled, a 25-year-old Israeli, described the campus as a place where “there are no confrontations or conflicts, and the dialogue is fairly civil. But there is certainly tension beneath the surface.”

He said one of the best examples of those tensions was during the World Cup playoffs, when Arab students rooted for every team that was playing against Israel.

“Suddenly, a wall goes up and it becomes them and us,” he said. Amin, who will graduate this year, said he found both sides at fault in what he termed “this ugly war.”

“On one hand, babies are killed in Gaza, while on the other hand students are killed having lunch,” he said. “There are simply no rules or ethics in this war.”