Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing | |
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Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign | |
Native name | הפיגוע בקו 37 |
Location | Haifa, Israel |
Coordinates | 32°47′50″N34°59′03″E / 32.79722°N 34.98417°E |
Date | 5 March 2003 |
Target | Bus |
Attack type | Suicide attack |
Weapon | Suicide vest |
Deaths | 17 (+ 1 bomber) |
Injured | 53 |
Perpetrator | Hamas |
Participant | 1 |
The Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing was a suicide bombing carried out on 5 March 2003 on an Egged bus in Haifa, Israel. 17 passengers were killed in the attack and 53 were injured. [1] Many of the victims were children, teenagers and students from Haifa University. [2]
The Palestinian Islamist terror organization Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The suicide bomber was 20-year-old Mahmoud Umdan Salim Qawasmeh, a student at the Palestine Polytechnic University. An Israeli Arab resident of Haifa who helped plan the attack was also tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement. [3]
The attack occurred on 5 March 2003, when a suicide bomber from Hebron detonated a bomb hidden underneath his clothes on a bus carrying many children and teenagers on their way home from school. [4] The bus exploded as it was pulling out of station on Moriyah Street, a main traffic artery near the Carmeliya neighborhood, heading from the Bat Galim neighborhood to the University of Haifa. The explosion occurred while the bus was packed with commuters. The attack killed 17 people and wounded 53. [5] Police said the bomb, strapped to the bomber's body, was laden with metal shrapnel in order to maximize the number of injuries. [6]
Spokesmen from Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised the attack. "We will not stop our resistance," said Abd al-Aziz Rantisi of Hamas. "We are not going to give up in the face of the daily killing of Palestinians." [5] In response, Israeli helicopters killed Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Makadmeh and three of his bodyguards. [7]
On 18 October 2011, Israel released three people convicted of planning the attack, Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh (19 life sentences), Majdi Muhammad Ahmed Amr (19 life sentences) and Fadi Muhammad Ibrahim al-Jaaba (18 life sentences), as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. [8] [9]
Note: This compilation includes only those attacks that resulted in casualties. Attacks which did not kill or wound are not included.
Note: The death toll quoted here is just the sum of the listings. There may be many omissions from the list. The human rights organisation B'Tselem has complied statistics of about 600 deaths during 2003 in the occupied territories alone.
A suicide bombing occurred on November 21, 2002 in a public bus in the neighborhood of Kiryat Menachem in Jerusalem. 11 people were killed in the attack and over 50 were injured.
A suicide bombing of a crowded public bus in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem took place on August 19, 2003. Twenty-four people were killed and over 130 wounded. Many of the victims were children, some of them infants. The Islamist militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
A Palestinian suicide bombing on Sbarro, a pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem, took place on 9 August 2001, in which 16 civilians were killed, including 7 children and a pregnant woman, and 130 wounded. The attack occurred during the events of the Second Intifada.
A suicide bombing on an Egged bus was carried out by Hamas in Jerusalem on June 18, 2002, killing 19 people and wounding over 74. 17 of the dead were residents of Gilo.
Terrorist attacks were carried out on two No. 18 buses on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, in 1996. Hamas suicide bombers killed 45 people in the attacks, which were masterminded by Mohammed Deif, using explosives prepared by Adnan Awul. These two bombings, within a few days of each other, occurred during a Hamas offensive launched after the killing of Yahya Ayyash, which also included the French Hill neighborhood attack, a suicide bombing in Ashkelon, and a terrorist attack near Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv.
The Beit Lid suicide bombing, was a double suicide attack by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad against Israeli soldiers at the Beit Lid Junction on January 22, 1995. 21 soldiers and one civilian were killed. It was the first suicide attack by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The following is a partial list of civilian casualties in the Second Intifada.
Events in the year 2004 in Israel.
Events in the year 2003 in Israel.
Events in the year 2002 in Israel.
Events in the year 2001 in Israel.
The Café Hillel bombing occurred on 9 September 2003, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself in Café Hillel in German Colony, Jerusalem. Seven people were killed in the attack and over 50 were injured.
Events in the year 2001 in the Palestinian territories.
Events in the year 2003 in the Palestinian territories.
A suicide bombing took place on June 11, 2003, on Egged bus line 14a at Davidka Square in the center of Jerusalem. 17 people were killed in the attack and over 100 people were injured.
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, also known as Wafa al-Ahrar, followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners — almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, although there were also a Ukrainian, a Jordanian and a Syrian. Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets.
Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi is a Jordanian national known for assisting in carrying out the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem, in 2001. She was convicted by an Israeli military tribunal and received multiple life sentences, but was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. She hosts a television show about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Husam Badran is the former leader of Hamas’s military wing in the northern West Bank. He was the orchestrator of several suicide bombings during the Second Intifada with the highest number of fatalities including the 2001 bombing which resulted in the Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in Tel Aviv which killed 21 people. Currently Badran serves as the international spokesperson for Hamas using Twitter, Facebook, and news media to encourage Hamas militants to commit acts of political violence against Israelis and the Israeli government. He lives in Doha, Qatar.