This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/explosion-reported-on-tel-aviv-bus.html

The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
Bomb Explodes on Tel Aviv Bus, Killing None but Deepening Fears In Tel Aviv, an Explosion Kills None but Revives Fears
(about 4 hours later)
TEL AVIV — The eight-day conflict in the Gaza Strip spilled onto the streets of Tel Aviv on Wednesday with a bomb blast aboard a civilian bus that took no lives but awoke ominous memories among Israelis of more lethal bombings a decade ago. TEL AVIV — A blast, a plume of smoke, the smell of gunpowder and a blown-up bus — scenes that had begun to fade from the collective Israeli memory came back in sharp relief on Wednesday, along with a renewed sense of vulnerability, when a bomb exploded on a passenger bus just after midday, injuring more than 20 people in the heart of Tel Aviv.
The explosion came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pursued diplomatic efforts to end the fighting. She planned to fly to Cairo on Wednesday after talks with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem and Palestinian leaders in the West Bank. The residents of this Mediterranean city have often been derided by other Israelis of existing in a “bubble” of beaches, fashionable restaurants and bars. But that sense of isolation faded as the city suffered its first terrorist bombing in years.
The bombing was the first time in the current fighting that violence had spread directly onto the streets of Tel Aviv, and the government called it an act of terrorism. One person was seriously injured and one moderately injured. Nineteen others were treated for minor injuries. Rescue officials said that the bus had not been full at the time of the explosion. Even as Israeli and Palestinian officials announced a cease-fire on Wednesday, halting eight days of Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes, the cross-border conflict extended its physical and psychological reach.
While there was no immediate or formal claim of responsibility, a message on a Twitter account in the name of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip, declared: “We told you IDF that our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are, ‘You opened the Gates of Hell on Yourselves.’ ” The letters I.D.F. refer to the Israel Defense Forces. A decade ago, the crude Qassam rockets from Gaza reached as far as Sderot, the Israeli town about a mile from the Gaza border. But in this conflict, nearly half the Israeli population found itself vulnerable to fire.
On several occasions since the latest conflagration seized Gaza last week, militants have aimed rockets at Tel Aviv but they have either fallen short, landed in the sea or been intercepted. Hundreds of rockets fired by militants in Gaza have struck other targets. In recent days, after Israel embarked on a military offensive meant to stop the persistent rocket fire that has plagued the south, air raid sirens sounded more than 40 miles away in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Most of the rockets fired at those cities were either intercepted or fell harmlessly in open ground or off the coast. But on Tuesday, a rocket with a powerful warhead destroyed the top three floors of an apartment building in Rishon LeZion, a suburb of Tel Aviv about seven miles south of the city. “They are pursuing us,” said Marcelle Azulai, a resident of Tel Aviv who had been sitting on a bus behind the one that was bombed.
But the bombing was the first time in the current fighting that violence had spread directly onto the streets of Tel Aviv. The bus was not full at the time of the explosion, rescue officials said. Nobody was killed in the bombing, although health officials at the nearby Ichilov Hospital said that 21 people were treated for injuries, including two teenagers in more serious condition, and the rest with moderate or light injuries.
“A bomb exploded on a bus in central Tel Aviv. This was a terrorist attack. Most of the injured suffered only mild injuries,” Reuters quoted Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as saying. “This was a lucky one,” said Dr. Pinchas Halperin, who runs the hospital’s emergency room. Judging by the relatively small amount of shrapnel, he said, the bomb that went off on Wednesday appeared to be smaller than those that traumatized Israelis after the second Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000. In the following years, hundreds of Israelis were killed by suicide bombings and shooting attacks on buses and in cafes and shopping centers.
With the black of smoke and the wail of sirens, some Israelis said the bombing rekindled memories of events during the second Palestinian uprising when bus bombings and urban warfare became relatively common. “Unfortunately we know them,” said Ilan Klein, a paramedic who arrived on the scene shortly after the explosion, referring to what he called the familiar sights and sounds of bombings. The latest bombing brought some of that terror back. The police said a man had apparently boarded the bus, placed the bomb in a bag under a seat and disembarked shortly before it exploded. Helicopters circled for hours after the blast, and police set up roadblocks as they hunted for the perpetrator, whom they suspected might have come from the West Bank.
As the charred skeleton of the bus was towed away with its windows shattered, Marcelle Azulia, who had been traveling on another bus said the blast “took me back” to the earlier period. It also hardened opposition to a truce, she said. “In my opinion, we should not go for a cease-fire. They should carry on to the end.” “At first we thought a rocket had fallen without a warning siren,” said Moran Cohen, 24, a student who was working in a restaurant near the scene of the attack. “People started running. The fear is back.”
In a Twitter message, the Israeli military said: “A bus has exploded in Tel Aviv. Possibly due to a bomb or suicide bomber. Many ambulance sirens. Stay tuned for updates.” On the sidewalk outside the hospital, two youths were operating a stand in the name of the Chabad-Lubavitch organization of Hasidic Jews, offering male passers-by the opportunity to put on tefillin, the small leather boxes containing scripture verses, and to recite psalms.
But the police said they were hunting for a man who jumped on and off the bus shortly before the blast. Some residents of the city were defiant and said they would not change their routines. But others acknowledged that for them, something had changed.

Isabel Kershner reported from Tel Aviv, and Alan Cowell from London.

“When the siren went off here for the first time on Friday, I left work and went home in fright,” said Tomer Calderon-Vaisman, 33, who runs a restaurant in Tel Aviv. “Now I try to be in places where I feel safe.”
Mr. Calderon-Vaisman and his wife, Galia, 31, an architect, had come to the hospital when a friend called to say that she had been injured in the bus bombing.
“Let’s say it makes you think a lot,” Ms. Calderon-Vaisman said. “It is the worst weapon that there is. There is no siren to warn you. You are living your life and in one second they can take it from you. In one moment your life can end because you boarded a bus.”