Lehi Steet bombing | |
---|---|
Part of the Israel-Hamas war | |
Location | Lehi Street, Tel Aviv, Israel |
Date | 18 August 2024 c. 20:00 (UTC+2) |
Target | unknown |
Attack type | suicide bombing |
Weapons | Explosives in a backpack |
Deaths | 1 (attacker) |
Injured | 1 (bystander) |
Perpetrators | |
Assailant | Jafar Muna |
Motive | Palestinian political violence |
The Lehi Street bombing was a failed suicide bombing in Lehi Street (Hebrew : רחוב לח''י) in Tel Aviv, Israel, on August 18, 2024. [1] [2] Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, stating it was executed in collaboration with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. [3] [4] The premature detonation resulted in the death of the attacker and injuries to a 33-year-old bystander. [1]
Israeli security forces confirmed the use of a powerful explosive device and the attack's terrorist nature. [4] Following this incident, Hamas' militant wing declared a return to suicide attacks in Israeli cities, a strategy they had largely abandoned since the 2000s. [1]
The bombing occurred shortly after the arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israel–Hamas war. [4]
The use of suicide bombings (Arabic : العمليات الاستشهادية, romanized: martyrdom operations) by Palestinian factions emerged in the 1990s. Between 1994 and 2005, these attacks resulted in 735 Israeli deaths and 4,554 injuries, [5] predominantly targeting Israeli civilians at locations such as shopping centers, public buses, transit stations, cafes, nightclubs, and restaurants. [6] [5] The tactic peaked during the Second Intifada (2000–2005), garnering significant Palestinian support and leading to the formation of a martyrdom cult around the attackers. [7]
Suicide bombings in the 1990s and 2000s had a profound impact on Israel's civilian population, [8] significantly affecting Israeli society and hardening attitudes toward Palestinians as potential peace partners in a two-state solution. [3] These attacks influenced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to build the West Bank barrier. [3] By 2005, Hamas shifted its strategy from suicide attacks to adopting a Hezbollah-like approach, leveraging Iranian support and smuggling routes to develop a substantial rocket arsenal, using it to attack Israeli urban centers. [9] Hamas and other groups have also shifted to other forms of violence, including shootings, stabbings, and car ramming attacks. [1]
Hamas has justified suicide bombings both practically and doctrinally. Practically, they have emphasized the harm and deterrence these attacks inflict on Israeli society. Doctrinally, they have glorified martyrdom as the highest form of jihad and Islamic belief. [10] Hamas has framed suicide attacks as a testament to "Palestinian innovative genius" and has contended that they establish a "balance of fear" by causing significant casualties and psychological distress in Israel. [10]
In the weeks before the Lehi Street bombing, Israel is thought to have assassinated two of the three top leaders of Hamas. On 31 July 2024, Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a bombing in Iran. Israel have not officially claimed the attack but no other assailant has been credibly accused. [11]
In 2014, left wing UK news outlet Novara Media attributed the Qassam Brigades' temporary abandonment of suicide attacks to Mohammed Deif's leadership moving the Brigades towards hostage taking and rocket attacks. [12] By contrast, in 2024 pro-Israel media lobby group CAMERA held Deif personally responsible for the deaths of 80 Israeli civilians, mostly in suicide bombings, when they criticized the way BBC Arabic reported on an Israeli airstrike intended to kill Deif. The airstrike killed over 90 people, and in a biography summary that BBC Arabic aired with their report in the incident they mentioned suicide bombings attributed to Deif but used language CAMERA objected to, allegedly referring to the bombings as "military operations" when CAMERA thought they should be referred to as "terrorist attacks". [13]
The bombing occurred on the night of Sunday 18 August 2023, on Lehi street in Tel Aviv. [14] [a]
The attack was carried out by a middle-aged man carrying a full backpack, as captured by CCTV footage shortly before the explosion. The bomb detonated, killing the bomber [15] and moderately injuring a 33-year-old passerby on an electric scooter with shrapnel. [16] [17] [18] [19] The explosion also set a truck on fire but caused relatively limited damage overall. The reason for the premature detonation remained unclear. [20]
The explosion could have resulted in many more casualties had the bomb detonated in a more crowded area, sparing nearby locations such as a synagogue and a shopping center. [4] Some sources therefore theorized that the bomb exploded prematurely, with Ynet characterizing the operation as "botched". [15]
Four days after the bombing, Hamas revealed the identity of the bomber as Jafar Muna, a resident of Nablus. According to Israeli police, Muna "had no prior criminal record". [21] On September 18, 2024 Hamas released a video of Muna's last statement. [22]
By October 2024, Israel charged eight Hamas operatives with involvement in the bombing, with the operation directed by Abada Bilal, a senior Hamas operative in Turkey. [23]
The Passover massacre was a suicide bombing carried out by Hamas at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on 27 March 2002, during a Passover seder. 30 civilians were killed in the attack and 140 were injured. It was the deadliest attack against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada, and one of the most severe suicide attacks Israel has ever experienced.
Yahya Abd-al-Latif Ayyash was the chief bombmaker of Hamas and the leader of the West Bank battalion of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. In that capacity, he earned the nickname "the Engineer". Ayyash is credited with advancing the technique of suicide bombings against Israel by Palestinian militant groups. The bombings he orchestrated killed approximately 90 Israelis, many of them civilians. He was assassinated by the Shin Bet on January 5, 1996, through a booby-trapped mobile phone.
As part of the Arab–Israeli conflict, especially during the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, Palestinian militant groups allegedly used children for suicide bombings. Minors were sometimes used as messengers and couriers, and according to Israeli sources as fighters. However, no evidence was found of systematic recruitment of children by Palestinian armed groups. The involvement of children in armed conflict was condemned by international human rights organizations.
This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005.
On 1 June 2001, a Hamas-affiliated militant blew himself up outside the Dolphinarium discotheque on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 Israelis, 16 of whom were teenagers. The majority of the victims were Israeli teenage girls whose families had recently immigrated from the former Soviet Union.
The 2nd Rosh Ha'ir restaurant bombing was a Palestinian suicide bombing on 17 April 2006 at Rosh Ha'ir shawarma restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel. Eleven Israeli civilians were killed in the attack and 70 were injured, in the deadliest attack in Israel in nearly two years.
The Tel Aviv–Jerusalem bus 405 attack was an attack that occurred on 6 July 1989, during the First Intifada, and was carried out by Abd al-Hadi Ghanim, a 25-year-old militant of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On a crowded Egged commuter bus line No. 405 en route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Ghanim seized the steering wheel of the bus, running it off a steep cliff into a ravine in the area of Qiryat Ye'arim. Sixteen civilians—including two Canadians and one American—died in the attack, and 27 were wounded.
The Beit Lid suicide bombing, saw two Palestinian suicide attacks 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 Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, commonly known simply as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a Palestinian Islamist paramilitary organization formed in 1981.
Events in the year 2003 in Israel.
Events in the year 2002 in Israel.
Events in the year 2001 in Israel.
Events in the year 2001 in Palestine.
Events in the year 2003 in Palestine.
On 25 January 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber injured at least 24 civilians in Tel Aviv, Israel. Afterwards, the Palestinian militant organization Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
The 2012 Tel Aviv bus bombing was a mass-injury terror attack carried out on November 21, 2012, on a crowded passenger bus driving in the center of Tel Aviv's business district. The attack was carried out by an Israeli citizen of Arab descent, who remotely detonated an explosive device, which he had hid on the bus in advance. Twenty-eight civilians were injured in the attack, among them three who were injured seriously. The attack was carried out on the 8th and last day of Operation Pillar of Defense, only a few hours before the ceasefire was reached.
Daniel Wultz was a Jewish-American teenager and one of 11 people killed in the 2006 Tel Aviv shawarma restaurant bombing at Rosh Ha'ir restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel. Seventy others were injured. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. On April 17, 2006, around 1:30 pm, a Palestinian suicide bomber approached a crowded restaurant near the old Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. The suicide bomber blew himself up when the security guard stationed at the entrance to the restaurant asked him to open his bag for inspection.
Palestinian suicide attacks, also known as Palestinian suicide bombings, involve the use of suicide bombings by Palestinian groups in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, predominantly targeting Israeli civilians. This tactic is also referred to as Palestinian suicide terrorism. It emerged in the 1990s and reached its peak during the Second Intifada (2000–2005). Attacks occurred at various locations, including shopping centers, public buses, transit stations, cafes, nightclubs, and restaurants, According to a 2006 study from the University of Haifa, only a few of the bombings targeted military objectives. Between 1994 and 2005, suicide bombings killed 735 Israelis and wounded 4,554.
Zaher Jabarin is a Palestinian in exile and a member of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). He is the head of the Office of Martyrs, Wounded, and Prisoners, and financial administrator in the Hamas Movement.