Israel Update for March 2011

David Dolan

As the Middle East and North Africa continued to writhe from scores of separate but connected political and military earthquakes during March, terror returned once again to the streets of Jerusalem for the first time in several years. A Christian woman originally from Scotland lost her life in the assault that also left dozens injured; several of them critically. Many security analysts warned that Israel could be witnessing the beginning of a new wave of Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorist attacks designed to destabilize the country and further harm the tourism flow, which reached record levels last year before the regional turmoil began in January.

The unsettling possibility of more terrorist atrocities just ahead was apparently buttressed by a new wave of Grad rocket and mortar attacks during the month from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. For the first time ever, one rocket struck a city in the southern outskirts of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. The illegal weapons also targeted the large Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheva and many other civilian targets. It was the heaviest sustained bombardments upon Jewish civilian centres since the Israeli-Hamas Cast Lead conflict ended in early 2009. Security experts warned that all of this strongly signals that it may be a very hot spring and summer ahead for the Jewish state-in more ways than just the weather.

Both before and after the latest terrorist outrage occurred on March 23, Israeli government and military officials were keeping a close and vary eye on the growing regional chaos that threatens to bring down more pro-Western Arab governments in the coming weeks or months, along with one or two enemies of Israel like Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. The US-led military campaign against one of Israel's oldest regional adversaries was quietly welcomed in Jerusalem even though the Israeli government had nothing to do with the UN-approved action in response to Qaddafi's brutal slaughter of his own citizens.

Growing street protests in neighboring Syria-reportedly leaving over a hundred protestors dead at the hands of the regime's ruthless forces by late March-were also being closely monitored in Jerusalem, as were similar anti-regime demonstrations in Iran. In both countries, security forces cracked down hard on the protestors unlike in Egypt during the dramatic ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February. Government officials were also being kept abreast of continuing anti-government demonstrations in Jordan, whose peace treaty with Israel could be undermined by any serious outbreak of sustained street violence.

Israeli officials were encouraged when American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed a direct finger at Iran's extremist clerical regime for being behind a violent Shiite revolt in the strategic Gulf Sunni-ruled state of Bahrain, the home port for America's powerful Fifth Fleet. Al Qaida was thought to be playing a major role in growing unrest further south in the troubled Arabian Peninsula country of Yemen.

Despite the fires raging all around the explosive region, there was some good news reported about Israel in the international press during March. Many media outlets noted that the compassionate Jewish state was the first country to set up an emergency field hospital in northern Japan to treat victims of the Asian country's massive earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami tidal surge. At the same time, an Australian newspaper reported that Israel is sitting on some of the largest shale oil deposits on earth, enough to make the country a net fuel exporter in the future, although costs for recovering such oil are usually greater than in most regular oil fields around the globe.

Terrorists Strike Central Jerusalem

A powerful bomb exploded on March 23 at a bus stop just across the street from Jerusalem's central bus station, killing one woman standing nearby the hidden explosive device and injuring around 50 others, six of them Americans. Two people were critically wounded; meaning they may eventually succumb to their wounds.

Five other bystanders near the bus stop where the explosion occurred were seriously wounded, with the rest mostly suffering from various degrees of shrapnel wounds and shock. Police reported that the bomb, which destroyed the city bus shelter and damaged two nearby buses, contained copious amounts of steel balls, nail and screws to maximize the destructive and deadly impact of the blast.

The attack took place near the city's western entrance on one of the most consistently crowded sidewalks, located directly between the central bus station and the largest public auditorium in Jerusalem, Binyamei Ha Umma, the site of the Christian Embassy's annual Feast of Tabernacles celebrations and many other large public events. Police said the bomb had been hidden in a paper bag left at the base of a public telephone on the side of the bus shelter.

Onlookers said the explosive device was placed next to the bus shelter by an unidentified man who calmly walked away from the scene after pretending to use the phone. Security sources later confirmed the accounts, saying the blast was therefore not set off by a suicide terrorist as was frequently the case during the deadly Al Aksa Palestinian attrition war that left nearly one thousand Israelis dead and thousands more injured during the first half of the last decade, and resulted in an even greater number of Palestinians casualties. Police suspect that the bomb was either set off by a timer or, more likely, via cell phone-meaning the perpetrator was probably still within eyesight of target zone when the reverberating blast occurred.

Always prepared for such heinous terrorist explosions, Jerusalem paramedics rushed to the scene to treat the wounded while police forces cleared away onlookers in case a second explosive device or a suicide bomber was present at the site. Bystanders reported scenes of panic and chaos in the minutes after the blast occurred. The loud explosion was heard all over the centre of the city and its western neighborhoods. Two shaken women went into premature labour while other people ran from the scene, some covered by blood from their shrapnel wounds. Among the injured were several children.

Local And Foreign Effects

One day after the latest terrorist assault shattered the peace of Jerusalem, military sources said two suspects belonging to the Palestinian Islamic jihad group were apprehended near the Arab city of Jenin in Samaria. Along with the radical Hamas movement, the group had earlier praised the terrorist attack as "a natural response to ongoing Israeli crimes" against the Palestinian people-an apparent reference to escalating IDF military activity against terrorist squads who fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into many Israeli cities and towns during March.