Bus Blast Proves Need for Fence, Israel Says

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged Sunday to push ahead with the building of a controversial barrier in the West Bank after a Palestinian suicide attacker detonated a shrapnel-packed bomb on a crowded Jerusalem bus, killing eight passengers, wounding more than 60 others and casting a shadow over an international court’s hearing on the barrier beginning today.

The explosion tore through a city bus at the start of morning rush hour as it was making its way past a flower-filled park in the center of Jerusalem. The force of the blast catapulted dead and wounded passengers through shattered windows and left a major thoroughfare strewn with body parts, cellular phones and bloodied schoolbooks.

A Palestinian militant group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of proceedings by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The group, linked to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, said in a statement that the bombing was partly in retaliation for an Israeli raid in the Gaza Strip this month that killed 15 Palestinians, and partly in protest of the barrier.

The Palestinians are pressing their case before the world court that the barrier amounts to an illegal attempt to seize large swaths of the West Bank. Israel, which has decided not to argue a case before the court because it does not recognize the body’s jurisdiction, says Sunday’s gruesome bombing is the most graphic proof of its need to protect its citizens against Palestinian militants.

“I believe this attack proves how necessary it is for us to build the fence,” said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. “In the places where there is no fence, what happens is dreadful. This fence was built out of need, and we’ll continue to build it because of the fact that it saves lives.”

Others went further, saying the bombing showed the irrelevance of the court proceedings.

“I say Israel should have made an appearance in The Hague not as a defendant, but an accuser, to tell the respectable court, ‘If you do not help, at least please do not hinder,’ ” said Uzi Dayan, a former general and politician who has led a campaign in favor of the barrier.

Israeli police said the attacker carried what is considered, by the grim local standard, to be only a medium-sized payload of explosives, about 5 pounds. The bomb was laced with nails and screws to inflict the maximum number of injuries, officials said.

“I didn’t hear the explosion -- I only felt it,” 50-year-old passenger Natalya Sorpina, a caregiver to the elderly and disabled, whispered through blistered lips from her hospital bed. “There was a wave of heat that scorched me and everyone around me.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei condemned the bombing, the second deadly attack on a Jerusalem bus in less than a month. He called for an immediate halt to such hostile acts, saying they only give Israel an excuse to move ahead with the planned 450-mile barrier, which is about one-quarter built.

Korei is already under heavy criticism from both Israel and the Bush administration for failing to crack down on the various Palestinian militant groups and deprive them of their ability to stage such bombings. Israeli officials and analysts viewed the attack as yet another worrying sign of the Palestinian premier’s weakness.

Privately, Palestinian officials expressed concern that the attack could discredit their cause and weaken their case before the world court.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said that without a return to negotiations, it would be extremely difficult for Palestinian leaders to contain the violence. Almost no progress has been made in implementing the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map, unveiled with great fanfare last year.

“Without any opportunity to hold talks, our hands are tied by Israel,” said Erekat. “We are restricted in every way.”

Israeli military sources said that any wide-ranging response to Sunday’s bombing was unlikely, given the sensitive timing with the start of the world court hearings. However, senior military officials led by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met Sunday to discuss possible steps.

As is almost always the case in the wake of an attack, the army wasted little time in swooping down on the bomber’s hometown -- this time, the village of Husan outside the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem was sealed off by Israeli troops within hours of the blast. Relatives and friends of the bomber, identified by Israeli authorities as 23-year-old Mohammed Zuul, hurried to empty the house of furniture and valuables, anticipating it would be demolished by the army, as is common Israeli practice after such attacks.

Zuul, married with a pregnant wife and small child, had been unemployed for more than three years, family members said.

“He did not have money to feed his family,” said a cousin, Amjad Zuul. “He was not allowed an entry permit to Israel and could not work because of this. Too much pressure leads to an explosion, and this applies to all the Palestinian people.”

Relatives said Zuul told his mother, Badia, when he left the family home early Sunday that he was going to build a mosque.

“The more your army attacks our people, the more martyrdom operations [suicide bombings] there will be,” the bomber said in a video circulated by his group.

Some Israeli officials, including Mofaz, interpreted the attack as a gesture of Palestinian defiance just before the opening of the court hearings. But police officials said they thought it was largely a matter of coincidence that among so many foiled attacks, a bomber managed to slip through the security net the day before the opening session.

“Our working assumption has for the past three years been that terrorist organizations attempt to strike Israel at any given moment, and this applies to today’s attack as well,” said police commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki.

In advance of the hearings in The Hague, Israel announced it would remove a five-mile section of the West Bank barrier that has isolated a Palestinian town for more than a year. Despite the bombing, workers began dismantling that stretch Sunday.

Even as Sharon and his aides promised to move swiftly to finish the barrier, political opponents blamed him for delays they said had cost lives. Sharon initially resisted the construction of a West Bank barrier because he did not want Jewish settlements left outside it.

“We are paying with our blood for one of the greatest security failures in the history of the country,” said Haim Ramon, an opposition leader. “We know what we should have done -- there’s a clear line along which the fence should have been built” -- referring to the Green Line, Israel’s de facto border before the 1967 Middle East War.

Jerusalem is to eventually be enclosed by a spur of the fence, but at many points, the city’s Arab and Jewish neighborhoods are closely intertwined.

In the meantime, security officials say they are working constantly to keep suicide attackers at bay. Sunday was scheduled to have marked the inauguration of five buses that are supposed to help foil bombers.

An unveiling ceremony was put off because of the blast, but the buses were to be put into use in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv today.

Special correspondent Samir Zedan in Bethlehem contributed to this report.