The Afula bus suicide bombing was the

suicide bombing A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

attack that was carried out on 6 April 1994, at a bus stop next to an Egged bus in the center of

Afula Afula ( he, עפולה Arabic: العفولة) is a city in the Northern District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. As of , the city had a population of . Afula's ancient ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Eight Israeli civilians were killed in the attack and 55 additional people were injured.

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni- Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qas ...

claimed responsibility for the attack, as did Islamic Jihad. The Afula bus suicide bombing was the first suicide bombing attack to be carried out by

Palestinian militants Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence perpetrated for political ends in relation to the State of Palestine or in connection with Palestinian nationalism. Common political objectives include self-determination in and sovere ...

against Israeli civilians in Israel, and was carried out in retaliation for the killing by a settler of 29 Muslims while they were at prayer in the Ibrahimi mosque in

Hebron Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after Eas ...

on 25 February.

Preparations for the attack

The Afula bus suicide bombing attack was planned by

chief bombmaker Yahya Ayyash, who began to plan suicide bombings within Israel in 1992. Ayyash rigged a 1987 Opel Ascona with seven gas cylinders, five anti-personnel

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade ...

s, and wrapped the bomb in a rucksack containing 1,100 carpenter nails. A caller to a Western news agency in Jerusalem said the car was carrying 385 pounds of explosives. The car, which had Israeli license plates that did not belong to it, had been stolen in Tel Aviv on 23 March.

The attack

Around 12:10 pm, during Holocaust Memorial Day, a Palestinian suicide bomber drove a vehicle full of explosives into the division nine street in downtown Afula. Two nearby schools had just ended classes for the day, and young Jewish students streamed toward the approaching bus for home. The suicide bomber stopped his vehicle next to an Egged commuter bus line number 348 and detonated the explosives device as the bus was boarding passengers at the bus stop, which was crowded with people. Witnesses described a horrible scene. A firefighter who was the first on the scene said that the street was covered with oil, seared metal and nails. A 23-year-old survivor who had been reading a newspaper about the on-going Oslo peace negotiations saw "a big rolling fire." He ran away, ripping off his burning clothes as he went. An ambulance driver reported that "people were charred, lacking limbs, lacking heads ... ." Tree branches were ripped off and windows were shattered at a nearby kindergarten. Among the mostly Jewish victims were several Arabs, including one of the fatalities.

The perpetrators

A few hours after the blast, Hamas issued a communique stating that the bombing was carried out by a 19-year-old Palestinian named Ra'id Zaqarna, who originated from the village of Qabatya in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and who was a member of the Abdel el-Rahman Hamadan militant cell of the

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades ( ar, كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام, , Battalions of martyr Izz ad-Din al-Qassam; also spelt Izzedine or Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades; often shortened to Al-Qassam Brigades, IQB

. Zaqarna drove to the intersection of Afula's 9th Brigade (Hativa Tesha) street, and pulled in front of the #348 bus. As a group of Israeli students boarded the bus, Zaqarna detonated the bomb. Israeli media reports said that he had previously served time in prison and was on an Israeli army list of fugitive members of Hamas's extremist armed wing. Police said they found a banner denouncing the Oslo peace process, and a Koran, the Islamic holy book, near the debris of the car.

Motivation

Hamas publicly declared that the attack was one of 5 planned to retaliate for the

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre, was a shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli extremist and member of the far-right Kach movement. On 25 F ...

in which the

settler

Baruch Goldstein Baruch Kopel Goldstein ( he, ברוך קופל גולדשטיין; born Benjamin Carl Goldstein; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an Israeli-American mass murderer, religious extremist, and physician who perpetrated the 1994 terroris ...

machine-gunned 29 Muslims dead at prayer, wounding another 125. Hamas, after conducting a second attack on 13 April, the Hadera bus station suicide bombing, Hamas desisted from undertaking the other three it had planned, when Israel quickened its schedule for withdrawing its military from the Gaza Strip soon after.

Robert Pape Robert Anthony Pape Jr. (born April 24, 1960) is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and t ...

br>''Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,''

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

2005, pp. 66-68 However, the Hebron attack may have been an excuse, not a reason. Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, opposed the Oslo peace talks, which were underway in Cairo at that time.

External links

FM Peres reaction to Afula attack
(6 April 1994)] – published at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Incident at Afula
– published on

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

, 7 April 1994.
Arab car bomber kills 8 in Israel; 44 are wounded
– published on ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' on 7 April 1994.
Arafat declines to condemn attack
– published on ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the pap ...

'' on 7 April 1994.
Us Urges Arafat To Condemn Blast
– published on the

Milwaukee Sentinel The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currentl ...

on 7 April 1994.
Israelis' Faith In Peace Is Put Under Strain by Bombing and New Attack
– published on ''

'' on 8 April 1994.

Footnotes

*The first suicide car bomb attack took place at the

Mehola Junction bombing The Mehola Junction bombing (also known as the Beit El bombing, literally, the House of God bombing) was the first suicide car bomb attack carried out by Palestinian militants and took place on 16 April 1993. Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash rigged ...

in the

on 16 April 1993. "A year later, on 6 April 1994, Hamas carried out its first successful suicide car bomb attack in Israel proper when a car packed with nearly 400 pounds of explosives detonated beside a bus picking up students in the Israeli town of Afula ..."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Afula Bus Suicide Bombing Suicide bombings in 1994 Mass murder in 1994 Hamas suicide bombings of buses Car and truck bombings in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Suicide car and truck bombings in Israel Islamic terrorist incidents in 1994 1994 murders in Israel Terrorist incidents in Israel in 1994 Islamic terrorism in Israel Cave of the Patriarchs massacre